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ESSAYS 


BY 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 


FIRST  SERIES 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

&be  ttitetfibe  prc«  Cambridge 


56239 


COPYRIGHT,    1865    AND    1876 

BY   TICKNOR   &    FIELDS    AND    RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON 

COPYRIGHT,    1883    AND    1903,   BY   EDWARD   W.    EMERSON 

ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 


2146 


co-jo.  £ 
CONTENTS 

I.   HISTORY 

• 

yi.  SELF-RELIANCE ' 

*JII.  COMPENSATION  . 

IV.  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 
^~V.  LOVE 
$VL  FRIENDSHIP 
VII.  PRUDENCE 
VIII.  HEROISM 

IX.  THE  OVER-SOUL 

"  X.   CIRCLES    — - 
\/  XL  INTELLECT 
XII.   ART 
NOTES 


PAGE 

I 

43 
91 
129 
167 
189 
219 

243 
265 
299 
323 
349 


HISTORY 

THERE  is  no  great  and  no  small 
To  the  Soul  that  maketh  all : 
And  where  it  cometh,  all  things  are  ; 
And  it  cometh  everywnerc. 


I  am  owner  of  the  sphere, 

Of  the  seven  stars  and  the  solar  year, 

Of  Czesar's  hand,  and  Plato's  brain, 

Of  Lord  Christ's  heart,  and  Shakspeare's  strain.1 


HISTORY 

THERE  is  one  mind  common  to  all  in- 
dividual men.  Every  man  is  an  inlet  to 
the  same  and  to  all  of  the  same.  He  that  is 
once  admitted  to  the  right  of  reason  is  made  a 
freeman  of  the  whole  estate.  What  Plato  has 
thought,  he  may  think  ;  what  a  saint  has  felt, 
he  may  feel;  what  at  any  time  has  befallen  any 
man,  he  can  understand.  Who  hath  access  to 
this  universal  mind  is  a  party  to  all  that  is  or 
can  be  done,  for  this  is  the  only  and  sovereign 
agent. 

Of  the  works  of  this  mind  history  is  the 
record.  Its  genius  is  illustrated  by  the  entire 
series  of  days.  Man  is  explicable  by  nothing  less  s 
than  all  his  history.  Without  hurry,  without 
rest,  the  human  spirit  goes  forth  from  the  be- 
ginning to  embody  every  faculty,  every  thought, 
every  emotion  which  belongs  to  it,  in  appro- 
priate events.  But  the  thought  is  always  prior 
to  the  fact ;  all  the  facts  of  history  preexist  in 
the  mind  as  laws.  Each  law  in  turn  is  made  by 
circumstances  predominant,  and  the  limits  of 
nature  give  power  to  but  one  at  a  time.  A  man 
is  «-hp  whnlp  EnryplnapiHia  flf  fartfl,  The  creation 


4  HISTORY 

of  a  thousand  forests  is  in  one  acorn,  and  Egypt, 
Greece,  Rome,  Gaul,  Britain,  America,  lie  folded 
already  in  the  first  man.  Epoch  after  epoch, 
camp,  kingdom,  empire,  republic,  democracy, 
are  merely  the  application  of  his  manifold  spirit 
to  the  manifold  world. 

This  human  mind  wrote  history,  and  this 
must  read  it.  The  Sphinx  must  solve  her  own 
riddle.  If  the  whole  of  history  is  in  one_man, 
it  is  all  to  be  explained  from  individual  expe- 

IrienceZ^  There  is  a  relation  between  the  hours 
of  our  life  and  the  centuries  of  time.  As  the 
air  I  breathe  is  drawn  from  the  great  repositories 
of  nature,  as  the  light  on  my  book  is  yielded  by 
a  star  a  hundred  millions  of  miles  distant,  as  the 
poise  of  my  body  depends  on  the  equilibrium  of 
centrifugal  and  centripetal  forces,  so  the  hours 
should  be  instructed  by  the  ages  and  the  ages 
explained  by  the  hours.  Of  the  universal  mind 
each  individual  man  is  one  more  incarnation. 
All  its  properties  consist  in  him.  Each  new 
fact  in  his  private  experience  flashes  a  light  on 
what  great  bodies  of  men  have  done,  and  the 
crises  of  his  life  refer  to  national  crises.  Every 
revolution  was  first  a  thought  in  one.  man's 
mind,  and  when  the  same  thought  occurs  to 
another  man,  it  is  the  key  to  that  era.  Every 


HISTORY  5 

reform  was  once  a  private  opinion,  and  when  it 
shall  be  a  private  opinion  again  it  will  solve  the 
problem  of  the  age.1  The  fact  narrated  must 
correspond  to  something  in  me  to  be  credible 
or  intelligible.  We,  as  we  read,  must  become 
Greeks,  Romans,  Turks,  priest  and  king,  mar- 
tyr and  executioner ;  must  fasten  these  images 
to  some  reality  in  our  secret  experience,  or  we 
shall  learn  nothing  rightly.  What  befell  As- 
drubal  or  Caesar  Borgia  is  as  much  an  illus- 
tration of  the  mind's  powers  and  depravations 
as  what  has  befallen  us.  Each  new  law  and 
political  movement  has  a  meaning  for  you. 
Stand  before  each  of  its  tablets  and  say,  *  Under 
this  mask  did  my  Proteus  nature  hide  itself.' 
This  remedies  the  defect  of  our  too  great  near-' 
ness  to  ourselves.  This  throws  our  actions  into 
perspective,  —  and  as  crabs,  goats,  scorpions, 
the  balance  and  the  waterpot  lose  their  mean- 
ness when  hung  as  signs  in  the  zodiac,  so  I 
can  see  my  own  vices  without  heat  in  the  dis- 
tant persons  of  Solomon,  Alcibiades,  and  Cati- 
line. 

It  is  the  universal  nature  which  gives  worth 
to  particular  men  and  things.  Human  life,  as 
containing  this,  is  mysterious  and  inviolable,  and 
we  hedge  it  round  with  penalties  and  laws.  All 


6  HISTORY 

laws  derive  hence  their  ultimate  reason ;  all 
express  more  or  less  distinctly  some  command 
of  this  supreme,  illimitable  essence.  Property 
also  holds  of  the  soul,  covers  great  spiritual 
facts,  and  instinctively  we  at  first  hold  to  it  with 
swords  and  laws  and  wide  and  complex  com- 
binations. The  obscure  consciousness  of  this 
fact  is  the  light  of  all  our  day,  the  claim  of 
claims ;  the  plea  for  education,  for  justice,  for 
charity  ;  the  foundation  of  friendship  and  love 
and  of  the  heroism  and  grandeur  which  belong 
to  acts  of  self-reliance.  It  is  remarkable  that 
involuntarily  we  always  read  as  superior  beings. 
Universal  history,  the  poets,  the  romancers,  do 
not  in  their  stateliest  pictures,  —  in  the  sacer- 
dotal, the  imperial  palaces,  in  the  triumphs  of 
will  or  of  genius,  —  anywhere  lose  our  ear,  any- 
where make  us  feel  that  we  intrude,  that  this 
is  for  better  men ;  but  rather  is  it  true  that  in 
their  grandest  strokes  we  feel  most  at  home. 
All  that  Shakspeare  says  of  the  king,  yonder 
slip  of  a  boy  that  reads  in  the  corner  feels  to 
be  true  of  himself.1  We  sympathize  in  the  great 
moments  of  history,  in  the  great  discoveries, 
the  great  resistances,  the  great  prosperities  of 
men  ;  —  because  there  law  was  enacted,  the  sea 
was  searched,  the  land  was  found,  or  the  blow 


HISTORY  7 

was  struck,  for  us,  as  we  ourselves  in  that  place 
would  have  done  or  applauded. 

We  have  the  same  interest  in  condition  and 
character.  We  honor  the  rich  because  they  have 
externally  the  freedom,  power,  and  grace  which 
we  feel  to  be  proper  to  man,  proper  to  us.  So 
all  that  is  said  of  the  wise  man  by  Stoic  or  Ori- 
ental or  modern  essayist,  describes  to  each  reader 
his  own  idea,  describes  his  unattained  but  attain- 
able self.  All  literature  writes  the  character  of 
the  wise  jnan.  Books,  monuments,  pictures, 
conversation,  are  portraits  in  which  he  finds  the 
lineaments  he  is  forming.  The  silent  and^  the 
eloquent_praise  him  and  accost  him,. _&&d  he Js 
stimulated  wherever_.h£__niQyes,  as  by  personal 
allusions.  A  true  aspirant  therefore  never  needs 
look  for  allusions  personal  and  laudatory  in  dis- 
course. He  hears  the  commendation,  not  of 
himself,  but,  more  sweet,  of  that  character  he 
seeks,  in  every  word  that  is  said  concerning 
character,  yea  further  in  every  fact  and  circum- 
stance, —  in  the  running  river  and  the  rustling 
corn.  Praise  is  looked,  homage  tendered,  love 
flows,  from  mute  nature,  from  the  mountains 
and  the  lights  of  the  firmament.1 

These  hints,  dropped  as  it  were  from  sleep 
and  night,  let  us  use  in  broad  day.  The  stu- 


8  HISTORY 

Jdent  is  to  read  history  actively  and  not  pas- 
sively ;  to  esteem  his  own  life  the  text,  and 
books  the  commentary.  Thus  compelled,  the 
Muse  of  history  will  utter  oracles,  as  never  to 
those  who  do  not  respect  themselves.  I  have 
no  expectation  that  any  man  will  read  history 
aright  who  thinks  that  what  was  done  in  a  re- 
mote age,  by  men  whose  names  have  resounded 
far,  has  any  deeper  sense  than  what  he  is  doing 
to-day.1 

The  world  exists  for  the  education  of  each 
man.  There  is  no  age  or  state  of  society  or 
mode  of  action  in  history  to  which  there  is  not 
somewhat  corresponding  in  his  life,  Jivery 
thing  tends  in  a  wonderful  manner  to  abbre- 
viate itself  and  yield  its  own  virtue  tqJrim^JHe 
t  ^should  see  that  he  can  live  all  history  in  his 
own  person,.  He  must  sit  solidly  at  home,  and 
not  suffer  himself  to  be  bullied  by  kings  or  em- 
pires, but  know  that  he  is  greater  than  all  the 
geography  and  all  the  government  of  the  world  ; 
he  must  transfer  the  point  of  view  from  which 
history  is  commonly  read,  from  Rome  and  Ath- 
ens and  London,  to  himself,  and  not  deny  his 
conviction  that  he  is  the  court,  and  if  Eng- 
land or  Egypt  have  anything  to  say  to  him  he 
will  try  the  case ;  if  not,  let  them  forever  be 


HISTORY  9 

silent.  He  must  attain  and  maintain  that  lofty 
sight  where  facts  yield  their  secret  sense,  and 
poetry  and  annals  are  alike^  The  instinct  of  the 
mind,  the  purpose  of  nature,  betrays  itself  in  the 
use  we  make  of  the  signal  narrations  of  history. 
Time  dissipates  to  shining  ether  the  solid  an- 
gularity of  facts.  No  anchor,  no  cable,  no  fences 
avail  to  keep  a  fact  a  fact.  Babylon,  Troy,  Tyre, 
Palestine,  and  even  early  Rome  are  passing  al- 
r^yty  into  fiction.  The  Garden  of  Eden,  the  sun 
standing  still  in  Gibeon,  is  poetry  thenceforward 
to  all  nations.  Who  cares  what  the  fact  was, 
when  we  have  made  a  constellation  of  it  to  hang 
in  heaven  an  immortal  sign  ?  London  and  Paris 
and  New  York  must  go  the  same  way.  "What 
is  history,"  said  Napoleon,  "  but  a  fable  agreed 
upon  ? "  This  life  of  ours  is  stuck  round  with 
Egypt, 'Greece,  Gaul,  England,  War,  Coloni- 
zation, Church,  Court  and  Commerce,  as  with 
so  many  flowers  and  wild  ornaments  grave  and 
gay.  I  will  not  make  more  account  of  them.  I 
believe  in  Eternity.1  I  can  find  Greece,  Asia,^ 
Italy,  Spain  and  the  Islands,  —  the  genius  and  I 
creative  principle  of  each  and  of  all  eras^in  my  J 
own  mind. 

We  are  always  coming  up  with  the  emphatic 
facts  of  history  in  our  private  experience  and 


io  HISTORY 

verifying  them  here.  All  history  becomes  sub- 
jective ;  jn  other  words  there  is  properly  no  </ 
history,  only  biography.  Every  mind  must 
know  the  whole  lesson  for  itself,  —  must  go 
over  the  whole  ground.  What  it  does  not  see, 
what  it  does  not  live,  it  will  not  know.  What 
the  former  age  has  epitomized  into  a  formula 
or  rule  for  manipular  convenience,  it  will  lose 
all  the  good  of  verifying  for  itself,  by  means  of 
the  wall  of  that  rule.  Somewhere,  sometime, 
it  will  demand  and  find  compensation  for  that 
loss,  by  doing  the  work  itself.  Ferguson  dis- 
covered many  things  in  astronomy  which  had 
long  been  known.  The  better  for  him. 

History  must  be  this  or  it  is  nothing.  Every 
law  which  the  state  enacts  indicates  a  fact  in 
human  nature  ;  that  is  all.  We  must  in  our- 
selves see  the  necessary  reason  of  every  fact,  — 
see  how  it  could  and  must  be.  So  stand  be- 
fore every  public  and  private  work  ;  before  an 
oration  of  Burke,  before  a  victory  of  Napo- 
leon, before  a  martyrdom  of  Sir  Thomas  More, 
of  Sidney,  of  Marmaduke  Robinson;1  before  a 
French  Reign  of  Terror,  and  a  Salem  hanging 
of  witches  ;  before  a  fanatic  Revival  and  the 
Animal  Magnetism  in  Paris,  or  in  Providence. 
We  assume  that  we  under  like  influence  should 


HISTORY  ii 

be  alike  affected,  and  should  achieve  the  like ; 
-and  we  aim  to  master  intellectually  the  steps 
and  reach  the  same  height  or  the  same  degrada- 
tion that  our  fellow,  our  proxy  has  done. 

All  inquiry  into  antiquity,  all  curiosity  re- 
specting the  Pyramids,  the  excavated  cities, 
Stonehenge,  the  Ohio  Circles,  Mexico,  Mem- 
phis, —  is  the  desire  to  do  away  this  wild, 
savage,  and  preposterous  There  or  Then,  and 
introduce  in  its  place  the  Here  and  the  Now. 
Belzoni  digs  and  measures  in  the  mummy-pits 
and  pyramids  of  Thebes  until  he  can  see  the 
end  of  the  difference  between  the  monstrous 
work  and  himself.  When  he  has  satisfied  him- 
self, in  general  and  in  detail,  that  it  was  made 
by  such  a  person  as  he,  so  armed  and  so  mo- 
tived, and  to  ends  to  which  he  himself  should 
also  have  worked,  the  problem  is  solved ;  his 
thought  lives  along  the  whole  line  of  temples 
and  sphinxes  and  catacombs,  passes  through 
them  all  with  satisfaction,  and  they  live  again 
to  the  mind,  or  are  now. 

AJjothic  cathedral  affirms  that  it  was_jdojie 
by  us  and  not  done  by  us.  Surely  it  was  by 
man,  but  we  find  it  not  in  our  man.  But  we 
apply  ourselves  to  the  history  of  its  production. 
We  put  ourselves  into  the  place  and  state  of 


12  HISTORY 

the  builder.  We  remember  the  forest-dwellers, 
the  first  temples,  the  adherence  to  the  first  type, 
and  the  decoration  of  it  as  the  wealth  of  the 
nation  increased  ;  the  value  which  is  given  to 
wood  by  carving  led  to  the  carving  over  the 
whole  mountain  of  stone  of  a  cathedral.  When 
we  have  gone  through  this  process,  and  added 
thereto  the  Catholic  Church,  its  cross,  its  music, 
its  processions,  its  Saints'  days  and  image-wor- 
ship, we  have  as  it  were  been  the  man  that  made 
the  minster;  we  have  seen  how  it  could  and 
must  be.  We  have  the  sufficient  reason.1 

The  difference  between  men  is  in  their  prin- 
ciple of  association.  Some  men  classify  objects 
by  color  and  size  and  other  accidents  of  appear- 
ance ;  others  by  intrinsic  likeness,  or  by  the  re- 
lation of  cause  and  effect.  The  progress  of  the 
intellect  is  to  the  clearer  vision  of  causes,  which 
neglects  surface  differences.  To  the  poet,  to  the 
philosopher,  to  the  saint,  all  things  are  friendly 
and  sacred,  all  events  profitable,  all  days  holy, 
all  men  divine.  For  the  eye  is  fastened  on  the 
life,  and  slights  the  circumstance.  Every  chem- 
ical substance,  every  plant,  every  animal  in  its 
growth,  teaches  the  unity  of  cause,  the  variety 
of  appearance. 

Upborne  and  surrounded  as  we  are  by  this 


HISTORY  13 

all-creating  nature,  soft  and  fluid  as  a  cloud  or 
the  air,  why  should  we  be  such  hard  pedants, 
and  magnify  a  few  forms  ?  Why  should  we  make 
account  of  time,  or  of  magnitude,  or  of  figure  ? 
The  soul  knows  them  not,  and  genius,  obeying 
its  law,  knows  how  to  play  with  them  as  a  young 
child  plays  with  graybeards  and  in  churches. 
Genius  studies  the  causal  thought,  and  far  back 
in  the  womb  of  things  sees  the  rays  parting  from 
one  orb,  that  diverge,  ere  they  fall,  by  infinite 
diameters.  Genius  watches  the  monad  through  $•*> 
all  his  masks  as  he  performs  the  metempsychosis 
of  nature.  Genius  detects  through  the  fly,  through 
the  caterpillar,  through  the  grub,  through  the 
egg,  the  constant  individual ;  through  count- 
less individuals  the  fixed  species ;  through  many 
species  the  genus  ;  through  all  genera  the  stead- 
fast type ;  through  all  the  kingdoms  of  organ- 
ized life  the  eternal  unity.  Nature  is  a  mutable 
cloud  which  is  always  and  never  the  same.  She 
casts  the  same  thought  into  troops  of  forms,  as 
a  poet  makes  twenty  fables  with  one  moraO 
Through  the  bruteness  and  toughness  of  mat— 
ter,  a  subtle  spirit  bends  all  things  to  its  ownljy 
will.  The  adamant  streams  into  soft  but  precise  '. ' 
form  before  it,  and  whilst  I  look  at  it  its  outline 
and  texture  are  changed  again.  Nothing  is  so/ 


I4  HISTORY 

fleeting  as  form  ;  yet  never  does  it  quite  deny 
itself.  In  man  we  still  trace  the  remains  or  hints 
of  all  that  we  esteem  badges  of  servitude  in  the 
lower  races  ;  yet  in  him  they  enhance  his  noble- 
ness and  grace  ;  as  lo,  in  TEschylus,  transformed 
to  a  cow,  offends  the  imagination ;  but  how 
changed  when  as  Isis  in  Egypt  she  meets  Osi- 
ris-Jove, a  beautiful  woman  with  nothing  of  the 
metamorphosis  left  but  the  lunar  horns  as  the 
splendid  ornament  of  her  brows  ! 

The  identity  of  history  is  equally  intrinsic, 
the  diversity  equally  obvious.  There  is,  at  the 
surface,  infinite  variety  of  things ;  at  the  centre 
there  is  simplicity  of  cause.  How  many  are 
the  acts  of  one  man  in  which  we  recognize  the 
same  character  !  Observe  the  sources  of  our  in- 
formation in  respect  to  the  Greek  genius.  We 
have  the  civil  history  of  that  people,  as  Herodo- 
tus, Thucydides,  Xenophon,  and  Plutarch  have 
given  it ;  a  very  sufficient  account  of  what  man- 
ner of  persons  they  were  and  what  they  did. 
We  have  the  same  national  mind  expressed  for 
us  again  in  their  literature,  in  epic  and  lyric 
poems,  drama,  and  philosophy  ;  a  very  complete 
form.  Then  we  have  it  once  more  in  their 
architecture,  a  beauty  as  of  temperance  itself, 
limited  to  the  straight  line  and  the  square,  —  a 


HISTORY  15 

huilded  geometry.  Then  we  have  it  once  again 
in  sculpture,  the  "  tongue  on  the  balance  of  ex- 
pression," a  multitude  of  forms  in  the  utmost 
freedom  of  action  and  never  transgressing  the 
.deal  serenity ;  like  votaries  performing  some 
religious  dance  before  the  gods,  and,  though  in 
convulsive  pain  or  mortal  combat,  never  daring 
to  break  the  figure  and  decorum  of  their  dance. 
Thus  of  the  genius  of  one  remarkable  people 
we  have  a  fourfold  representation :  and  to  the 
senses  what  more  unlike  than  an  ode  of  Pindar, 
a  marble  centaur,  the  peristyle  of  the  Parthenon, 
and  the  last  actions  of  Phocion  ? ' 

Every  one  must  have  observed  faces  and 
forms  which,  without  any  resembling  feature, 
make  a  like  impression  on  the  beholder.  A  par- 
ticular picture  or  copy  of  verses,  if  it  do  not 
awaken  the  same  train  of  images,  will  yet  super- 
induce the  same  sentiment  as  some  wild  moun- 
tain walk,  although  the  resemblance  is  nowise 
obvious  to  the  senses,  but  is  occult  and  out  of 
the  reach  of  the  understanding.  Nature  is  an 
endless  combination  and  repetition  of  a  very  few 
laws.  She  hums  the  old  well-known  air  through 
innumerable  variations.* 

Nature  is  full  of  a  sublime  family  likeness 
throughout  her  works,  and  delights  in  startling 


16  HISTORY 

us  with  resemblances  in  the  most  unexpected 
quarters.  I  have  seen  the  head  of  an  old  sachem 
of  the  forest  which  at  once  reminded  the  eye  of 
a  bald  mountain  summit,  and  the  furrows  of  the 
brow  suggested  the  strata  of  the  rock.  There 
are  men  whose  manners  have  the  same  essential 
splendor  as  the  simple  and  awful  sculpture  on 
the  friezes  of  the  Parthenon  and  the  remains  of 
the  earliest  Greek  art.  And  there  are  composi- 
tions of  the  same  strain  to  be  found  in  the  books 
of  all  ages.  What  is  Guide's  Rospigliosi  Au- 
rora but  a  morning  thought,  as  the  horses  in  it 
are  only  a  morning  cloud? '  If  any  one  will  but 
take  pains  to  observe  the  variety  of  actions  to 
which  he  is  equally  inclined  in  certain  moods 

Cf  mind,  and  those  to  which  he  is  averse,  he 
ill  see  how  deep  is  the  chain  of  affinity. 
A  painter  told  me  that  nobody  could  draw  a 
tree  without  in  some  sort  becoming  a  tree;  or 
draw  a  child  by  studying  the  outlines  of  its  form 
merely,  —  but  by  watching  for  a  time  his  mo- 
tions and  plays,  the  painter  enters  into  his  na- 
ture and  can  then  draw  him  at  will  in  every 
attitude.  So  Roos  "  entered  into  the  inmost 
nature  of  a  sheep."  I  knew  a  draughtsman  em- 
ployed in  a  public  survey  who  found  that  he 
could  not  sketch  the  rocks  until  their  geological 


HISTORY  17 

structure  was  first  explained  to  him.  In  a  cer- 
tain state  of  thought  is  the  common  origin  of 
very  diverse  works.  It  is  the  spirit  and  not  the 
fact  that  is  identical.  By  a  deeper  apprehension, 
and  not  primarily  by  a  painful  acquisition  of 
many  manual  skills,  the  artist  attains  the  power 
of  awakening  other  souls  to  a  given  activity. 

It  has  been  said  that  "  common  souls  pay  with 
what  they  do,  nobler  souls  with  that  which  they 
are."  And  why?  Because  a  profound  nature 
awakens  in  us  by  its  actions  and  words,  by  its 
very  looks  and  manners,  the  same  power  and 
beauty  that  a  gallery  of  sculpture  or  of  pictures 
addresses. 

Civil  and  natural  history,  the  history  of  art 
and  of  literature,  must  be  explained  from  indi- 
vidual history,  or  must  remain  words.  There 
is  nothing  but  is  related  to  us,  nothing  that 
does  not  interest  us,  —  kingdom,  college,  tree, 
horse,  or  iron  shoe,  —  the  roots  of  all  things 
are  in  man.  Santa  Croce  and  the  Dome  of  St. 
Peter's  are  lame  copies  after  a  divine  model.1 
Strasburg  Cathedral  is  a  material  counterpart 
of  the  soul  of  Erwin  of  Steinbach.  The  true 
poem  is  the  poet's  mind  ;  the  true  ship  is  the 
ship-builder.  In  the  man,  could  we  lay  him 
open,  we  should  see  the  reason  for  the  last 
u 


1 8  HISTORY 

flourish  and  tendril  of  his  work ;  as  every  spine 
and  tint  in  the  sea-shell  preexists  in  the  secreting 
organs  of  the  fish.  The  whole  of  heraldry  and  1 
of  chivalry  is  in  courtesy.  A  man  of  fine  man-  / 
pers  shall  pronounce  your  name  with  all  the 
ornament  that  titles  of  nobility  could  ever  add. 
The  trivial  experience  of  every  day  is  always 
verifying  some  old  prediction  to  us  and  con- 
verting into  things  the  words  and  signs  which 
we  had  heard  and  seen  without  heed.  A  lady 
with  whom  I  was  riding  in  the  forest  said  to  me 
that  the  woods  always  seemed  to  her  to  wait,  as 
if  the  genii  who  inhabit  them  suspended  their 
deeds  until  the  wayfarer  had  passed  onward ; 
a  thought  which  poetry  has  celebrated  in  the 
dance  of  the  fairies,  which  breaks  off  on  the  ap- 
proach of  human  feet.  The  man  who  has  seen 
the  rising  moon  break  out  of  the  clouds  at  mid- 
night, has  been  present  like  an  archangel  at  the 
creation  of  light  and  of  the  world.  I  remember 
one  summer  day  in  the  fields  my  companion 
pointed  out  to  me  a  broad  cloud,  which  might 
extend  a  quarter  of  a  mile  parallel  to  the  hori- 
zon, quite  accurately  in  the  form  of  a  cherub  as 
painted  over  churches,  —  a  round  block  in  the 
centre,  which  it  was  easy  to  animate  with  eyes 
and  mouth,  supported  on  either  side  by  wide* 


HISTORY  ig 

stretched  symmetrical  wings.  What  appears 
once  in  the  atmosphere  may  appear  often,  and 
it  was  undoubtedly  the  archetype  of  that  famil- 
iar ornament.  I  have  seen  in  the  sky  a  chain 
of  summer  lightning  which  at  once  showed  to 
me  that  the  Greeks  drew  from  nature  when 
they  painted  the  thunderbolt  in  the  hand  of 
Jove.  I  have  seen  a  snow-drift  along  the  sides 
of  the  stone  wall  which  obviously  gave  the  idea 
of  the  common  architectural  scroll  to  abut  a 
tower.1 

By  surrounding  ourselves  with  the  original 
circumstances  we  invent  anew  the  orders  and 
the  ornaments  of  architecture,  as  we  see  how 
each  people  merely  decorated  its  primitive 
abodes.  The  Doric  temple  preserves  the  sem- 
blance of  the  wooden  cabin  in  which  the  Dorian 
dwelt.  The  Chinese  pagoda  is  plainly  a  Tartar 
tent.  The  Indian  and  Egyptian  temples  still 
betray  the  mounds  and  subterranean  houses 
of  their  forefathers.  "  The  custom  of  making 
houses  and  tombs  in  the  living  rock,"  says 
Heeren  in  his  Researches  on  the  Ethiopians, 
"  determined  very  naturally  the  principal  char- 
acter of  the  Nubian  Egyptian  architecture  to 
the  colossal  form  which  it  assumed.  In  these 
caverns,  already  prepared  by  nature,  the  eye 


20  HISTORY 

was  accustomed  to  dwell  on  huge  shapes  and 
masses,  so  that  when  art  came  to  the  assistance 
of  nature  it  could  not  move  on  a  small  scale 
without  degrading  itself.  What  would  statues 
of  the  usual  size,  or  neat  porches  and  wings 
have  been,  associated  with  those  gigantic  halls 
before  which  only  Colossi  could  sit  as  watchmen 
or  lean  on  the  pillars  of  the  interior  ?  " 

The  Gothic  church  plainly  originated  in  a 
rude  adaptation  of  the  forest  trees,  with  all  their 
boughs,  to  a  festal  or  solemn  arcade ;  as  the 
bands  about  the  cleft  pillars  still  indicate  the 
green  withes  that  tied  them.  No  one  can  walk 
in  a  road  cut  through  pine  woods,  without  being 
struck  with  the  architectural  appearance  of  the 
grove,  especially  in  winter,  when  the  barren- 
ness of  all  other  trees  shows  the  low  arch  of  the 
Saxons.  In  the  woods  in  a  winter  afternoon 
one  will  see  as  readily  the  origin  of  the  stained 
glass  window,  with  which  the  Gothic  cathedrals 
are  adorned,  in  the  colors  of  the  western  sky 
seen  through  the  bare  and  crossing  branches  of 
the  forest.  Nor  can  any  lover  of  nature  enter 
the  old  piles  of  Oxford  and  the  English  cathe- 
drals, without  feeling  that  the  forest  overpow- 
ered the  mind  of  the  builder,  and  that  his  chisel, 
his  saw  and  plane  still  reproduced  its  ferns,  its 


HISTORY  7.1 

spikes  of  flowers,  its  locust,  elm,  oak,  pine,  fir 
and  spruce.1 

The  Gothic  cathedral  is  a  blojsomingjmjatone 
subdued  by  the  insatiable  demand  of  harmony 
in  man.  The  mountain  of  granite  blooms  into 
an  eternal  flower,  with  the  lightness  and  delicate 
finish  as  well  as  the  aerial  proportions  and  per- 
spective of  vegetable  beauty. 

In  like  manner  all  public  facts  are  to  be  indi- 
vidualized, all  private  facts  are  to  be  general- 
ized. Then  at  once  History  becomes  fluid  and 
true,  and  Biography  deep  and  sublime.  As  the 
Persian  imitated  in  the  slender  shafts  and  capi- 
tals of  his  architecture  the  stem  and  flower  of 
the  lotus  and  palm,  so  the  Persian  court  in  its 
magnificent  era  never  gave  over  the  nomadism 
of  its  barbarous  tribes,  but  travelled  from  Ec- 
batana,  where  the  spring  was  spent,  to  Susa  in 
summer  and  to  Babylon  for  the  winter. 

In  the  early  history  of  Asia  and  Africa,  No- 
madism and  Agriculture  are  the  two  antago- 
nist facts.  The  geography  of  Asia  and  of  Africa 
necessitated  a  nomadic  life.  But  the  nomads 
were  the  terror  of  all  those  whom  the  soil  or  the 
advantages  of  a  market  had  induced  to  build 
towns.  Agriculture  therefore  was  a  religious 
injunction,  because  of  the  perils  of  the  state 


22  HISTORY 

from  nomadism.  And  in  these  late  and  civil 
countries  of  England  and  America  these  pro- 
pensities still  fight  out  the  old  battle,  in  the 
nation  and  in  the  individual.  The  nomads  of 
Africa  were  constrained  to  wander,  by  the  at- 
tacks of  the  gad-fly,  which  drives  the  cattle  mad, 
and  so  compels  the  tribe  to  emigrate  in  the 
rainy  season  and  to  drive  off  the  cattle  to  the 
higher  sandy  regions.  The  nomads  of  Asia  fol- 
low the  pasturage  from  month  to  month.  In 
America  and  Europe  the  nomadism  is  of  trade 
and  curiosity  ;  a  progress,  certainly,  from  the 
gad-fly  of  Astaboras1  to  the  Anglo  and  Italo- 
mania  of  Boston  Bay.2  Sacred  cities,  to  which 
a  periodical  religious  pilgrimage  was  enjoined, 
or  stringent  laws  and  customs  tending  to  invig- 
orate the  national  bond,  were  the  check  on  the 
old  rovers  ;  and  the  cumulative  values  of  long 
residence  are  the  restraints  on  the  itinerancy  of 
the  present  day.  The  antagonism  of  the  two 
tendencies  is  not  less  active  in  individuals,  as 
the  love  of  adventure  or  the  love  of  repose  hap- 
pens to  predominate.  A  man  of  rude  health  and 
flowing  spirits  has  the  faculty  of  rapid  domestica 
tion,  lives  in  his  wagon  and  roams  through  all  lat- 
itudes as  easily  as  a  Calmuc.3  At  sea,  or  in  the 
forest,  or  in  the  snow,  he  sleeps  as  warm,  dines 


HISTORY  23 

with  as  good  appetite,  and  associates  as  happihf 
as  beside  his  own  chimneys.  Or  perhaps  his 
facility  is  deeper  seated,  in  the  increased  range 
of  his  faculties  of  observation,  which  yield  him 
points  of  interest  wherever  fresh  objects  meet 
his  eyes.  The  pastoral  nations  were  needy  and 
hungry  to  desperation;  and  this  intellectual 
nomadism,  in  its  excess,  bankrupts  the  mind 
through  the  dissipation  of  power  on  a  miscellany 
of  objects.  The  home-keeping  wit,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  that  continence  or  content  which  finds 
all  the  elements .  of  life  in  its  own  soil ;  and 
which  has  its  own  perils  of^mdiro"fony  and  de- 
terioration, if  not  stimulated  by  foreign  infu- 
sions.1 

Every  thing  the  individual  sees  without  him 
corresponds  to  his  states  of  mind,  and  every 
thing  is  in  turn  intelligible  to  him,  as  his  onward 
thinking  leads  him  into  the  truth  to  which  that 
fact  or  series  belongs. 

The  primeval  world,  —  the  Fore- World,  as 
the  Germans  say,  —  I  can  dive  to  it  in  myself 
as  well  as  grope  for  it  with  researching  fingers 
5n  catacombs,  libraries,  and  the  broken  reliefs 
and  torsos  of  ruined  villas. 

What  is  the  foundation  of  that  interest  all 
men  feel  in  Greek  history,  letters,  art  and  poetry, 


24  HISTORY 

in  all  its  periods  from  the  Heroic  or  Homeric 
age  down  to  the  domestic  life  of  the  Atheni- 
ans and  Spartans,  four  or  five  centuries  later  ? 
What  but  this,  that  every  man  passes  personally 
through  a  Grecian  period.  The  Grecian  state  is 
the  era  of  the  bodily  nature,  the  perfection  of 
the  senses,  —  of  the  spiritual  nature  unfolded 
in  strict  unity  with  the  body.  In  it  existed  those 
human  forms  which  supplied  the  sculptor  with 
his  models  of  Hercules,  Phosbus,  and  Jove; 
not  like  the  forms  abounding  in  the  streets  of 
modern  cities,  wherein  the  face  is  a  confused 
blur  of  features,  but  composed  of  incorrupt, 
sharply  defined  and  symmetrical  features,  whose 
eye-sockets  are  so  formed  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  such  eyes  to  squint  and  take  fur- 
tive glances  on  this  side  and  on  that,  but  they 
must  turn  the  whole  head.  The  manners  of 
that  period  are  plain  and  fierce.  The  reverence 
exhibited  is  for  personal  qualities ;  courage,  ad- 
dress, self-command,  justice,  strength,  swiftness, 
a  loud  voice,  a  broad  chest.  Luxury  and  ele- 
gance are  not  known.  A  sparse  population  and 
want  make  every  man  his  own  valet,  cook, 
butcher  and  soldier,  and  the  habit  of  supplying 
his  own  needs  educates  the  body  to  wonderful 
performances.  Such  are  the  Agamemnon  and 


HISTORY  25 

Diomed  of  Homer,  and  not  far  different  is  the 
picture  Xenophon  gives  of  himself  and  his  com- 
patriots in  the  Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand. 
"  After  the  army  had  crossed  the  river  Teleboas 
in  Armenia,  there  fell  much  snow,  and  the  troops 
lay  miserably  on  the  ground  covered  with  it. 
But  Xenophon  arose  naked,  and  taking  an  axe, 
began  to  split  wood ;  whereupon  others  rose 
and  did  the  like."  '  Throughout  his  army  exists 
a  boundless  liberty  of  speech.  They  quarrel  for 
plunder,  they  wrangle  with  the  generals  on  each 
new  order,  and  Xenophon  is  as  sharp-tongued 
as  any  and  sharper-tongued  than  most,  and  so 
gives  as  good  as  he  gets.  Who  does  not  see 
that  this  is  a  gang  of  great  boys,  with  such  a 
code  of  honor  and  such  lax  discipline  as  great 
boys  have  ? 

The  costly  charm  of  the  ancient  tragedy,  and 
indeed  of  all  the  old  literature,  is  that  the  per- 
sons speak  simply, — speak  as  persons  who 
have  great  good  sense  without  knowing  it,  be- 
fore yet  the  reflective  habit  has  become  the  pre- 
dominant habit  of  the  mind.  Our  admiration 
of  the  antique  is  not  admiration  of  the  old,  but 
of  the  natural.  The  Greeks  are  not  reflective, 
but  perfect  in  their  senses  and  in  their  health, 
with  the  finest  physical  organization  in  the 


2&  HISTORY 

world.  Adults  acted  with  the  simplicity  and 
grace  of  children.  They  made  vases,  tragedies 
and  statues,  such  as  healthy  senses  should,  — 
that  is,  in  good  taste.  Such  things  have  con- 
tinued to  be  made  in  all  ages,  and  are  now, 
wherever  a  healthy  physique  exists  ;  but,  as  a 
class,  from  their  superior  organization,  they  have 
surpassed  all.  They  combine  the  energy  of 
manhood  with  the  engaging  unconsciousness  of 
childhood.  The  attraction  of  these  manners  is 
that  they  belong  to  man,  and  are  known  to 
every  man  in  virtue  of  his  being  once  a  child ; 
besides  that  there  are  always  individuals  who 
retain  these  characteristics.  A  person  of  child- 
like genius  and  inborn  energy  is  still  a  Greek, 
and  revives  our  love  of  the  Muse  of  Hellas.  I 
admire  the  love  of  nature  in  the  Philoctetes.  In 
reading  those  fine  apostrophes  to  sleep,  to  the 
stars,  rocks,  mountains  and  waves,  I  feel  time 
passing  away  as  an  ebbing  sea.  I  feel  the  eter- 
nity of  man,  the  identity  of  his  thought.  The 
Greek  had,  it  seems,  the  same  fellow-beings  as  I. 
The  sun  and  moon,  water  and  fire,  met  his  heart 
precisely  as  they  meet  mine.  Then  the  vaunted 
distinction  between  Greek  and  English,  between 
Classic  and  Romantic  schools,  seems  superficial 
and  pedantic.  When  a  thought  of  Plato  be- 


HISTORY  27 

comes  a  thought  to  me, —  when  a  truth  that  fired 
the  soul  of  Pindar  fires  mine,  time  is  no  more. 
When  I  feel  that  we  two  meet  in  a  perception, 
that  our  two  souls  are  tinged  with  the  same 
hue,  and  do  as  it  were  run  into  one,  why  should 
I  measure  degrees  of  latitude,  why  should  I 
count  Egyptian  years  ? 

The  student  interprets  the  age  of  chivalry  by 
his  own  age  of  chivalry,  and  the  days  of  mari- 
time adventure  and  circumnavigation  by  quite 
parallel  miniature  experiences  of  his  own.  To 
the  sacred  history  of  the  world  he  has  the  same 
key.  When  the  voice  of  a  prophet  out  of  the 
deeps  of  antiquity  merely  echoes  to  him  a  sen- 
timent of  his  infancy,  a  prayer  of  his  youth,  he 
then  pierces  to  the  truth  through  all  the  confu- 
sion of  tradition  and  the  caricature  of  institu- 
tions. 

Rare,  extravagant  spirits  come  by  us  at  inter- 
vals, who  disclose  to  us  new  facts  in  nature.  I 
see  that  men  of  God  have  from  time  to  time 
walked  among  men  and  made  their  commission 
felt  in  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  commonest 
hearer.  Hence  evidently  the  tripod,  the  priest, 
the  priestess  inspired  by  the  divine  afflatus. 

Jesus  astonishes  and  overpowers  sensual  peo- 
ple. They  cannot  unite  him  to  history,  or  re* 


28  HISTORY 

concile  him  with  themselves.  As  they  come  to 
revere  their  intuitions  and  aspire  to  live  holily, 
their  own  piety  explains  every  fact,  every  word. 

How  easily  these  old  worships  of  Moses,  of 
Zoroaster,  of  Menu,  of  Socrates,  domesticate 
themselves  in  the  mind.  I  cannot  find  any  an- 
tiquity in  them.  They  are  mine  as  much  as 
theirs. 

I  have  seen  the  first  monks  and  anchorets, 
without  crossing  seas  or  centuries.  More  than 
once  some  individual  has  appeared  to  me  with 
such  negligence  of  labor  and  such  commanding 
contemplation,  a  haughty  beneficiary  begging  in 
the  name  of  God,  as  made  good  to  the  nine- 
teenth century  Simeon  the  Stylite,  the  Thebais, 
and  the  first  Capuchins.1 

The  priestcraft  of  the  East  and  West,  of  the 
Magian,  Brahmin,  Druid,  and  Inca,  is  expounded 
in  the  individual's  private  life.  The  cramping 
influence  of  a  'lard  formalist  on  a  young  child, 
in  repressing  his  spirits  and  courage,  paralyzing 
the  understanding,  and  that  without  producing 
indignation,  but  only  fear  and  obedience,  and 
even  much  sympathy  with  the  tyranny,  —  is  a 
familiar  fact,  explained  to  the  child  when  he  be- 
comes a  man,  only  by  seeing  that  the  oppressor 
of  his  youth  is  himself  a  child  tyrannized  over 


HISTORY  29 

by  those  names  and  words  and  forms  of  whose 
influence  he  was  merely  the  organ  to  the  youth. 
The  fact  teaches  him  how  Belus  was  worshipped 
and  how  the  Pyramids  were  built,  better  than 
the  discovery  by  Champollion  of  the  names  of 
all  the  workmen  and  the  cost  of  every  tile.  He 
finds  Assyria  and  the  Mounds  of  Cholula  at 
his  door,  and  himself  has  laid  the  courses. 

Again,  in  that  protest  which  each  considerate 
person  makes  against  the  superstition  of  his 
times,  he  repeats  step  for  step  the  part  of  old 
reformers,  and  in  the  search  after  truth  finds, 
like  them,  new  perils  to  virtue.  He  learns  again 
what  moral  vigor  is  needed  to  supply  the  girdle 
of  a  superstition.  A  great  licentiousness  treads 
on  the  heels  of  a  reformation.  How  many  times 
in  the  history  of  the  world  has  the  Luther  of 
the  day  had  to  lament  the  decay  of  piety  in  his 
own  household !  "  Doctor,"  said  his  wife  to 
Martin  Luther,  one  day,  "  how  is  it  that  whilst 
subject  to  papacy  we  prayed  so  often  and  with 
such  fervor,  whilst  now  we  pray  with  the  utmost 
coldness  and  very  seldom  ?"* 

The  advancing  man  discovers  how  deep  a 
property  he  has  in  literature,  —  in  all  fable  as 
well  as  in  all  history.  He  finds  that  the  poet 
was  no  odd  fellow  who  described  strange  and 


30  HISTORY 

impossible  situations,  but  that  universal  man 
wrote  by  his  pen  a  confession  true  for  one  and 
true  for  all.  His  own  secret  biography  he  finds 
in  lines  wonderfully  intelligible  to  him,  dotted 
down  before  he  was  born.  One  after  another  he 
comes  up  in  his  private  adventures  with  every 
fable  of  ./Esop,  of  Homer,  of  Hafiz,  of  Ariosto, 
of  Chaucer,  of  Scott,  and  verifies  them  with  his 
own  head  and  hands. 

The  beautiful  fables  of  the  Greeks,  being 
proper  creations  of  the  imagination  and  not  of 
the  fancy,  are  universal  verities.  What  a  range 
of  meanings  and  what  perpetual  pertinence  has 
the  story  of  Prometheus  !  Beside  its  primary 
value  as  the  first  chapter  of  the  history  of 
Europe,  (the  mythology  thinly  veiling  authentic 
facts,  the  invention  of  the  mechanic  arts  and 
the  migration  of  colonies,)  it  gives  the  history 
of  religion,  with  some  closeness  to  the  faith  of 
later  ages.  Prometheus  is  the  Jesus  of  the  old 
mythology.  He  is  the  friend  of  man;  stands 
between  the  unjust  "justice"  of  the  Eternal 
Father  and  the  race  of  mortals,  and  readily  suf- 
fers all  things  on  their  account.1  But  where  it 
departs  from  the  Calvinistic  Christianity  and 
exhibits  him  as  the  defier  of  Jove,  it  represents 
a  state  of  mind  which  readily  appears  wherever 


HISTORY  31 

the  doctrine  of  Theism  is  taught  in  a  crude, 
objective  form,  and  which  seems  the  self-defence 
of  man  against  this  untruth,  namely  a  discon- 
tent with  the  believed  fact  that  a  God  exists, 
and  a  feeling  that  the  obligation  of  reverence  is 
onerous.  It  would  steal  if  it  could  the  fire  of 
the  Creator,  and  live  apart  from  him  and  inde- 
pendent of  him.  The  Prometheus  Vinctus  is 
the  romance  of  skepticism.  Not  less  true  to  all 
time  are  the  details  of  that  stately  apologue. 
Apollo  kept  the  flocks  of  Admetus,  said  the 
poets.  When  the  gods  come  among  men,  they 
are  not  known.  Jesus  was  not ;  Socrates  and 
Shakspeare  were  not.  Antceus  was  suffocated 
by  the  gripe  of  Hercules,  but  every  time  he 
touched  his  mother-earth  his  strength  was  re- 
newed. Man  is  the  broken  giant,  and  in  all  his 
weakness  both  his  body  and  his  mind  are  invig- 
orated by  habits  of  conversation  with  nature. 
The  power  of  music,  the  power  of  poetry,  to 
unfix  and  as  it  were  clap  wings  to  solid  nature^ 
interprets  the  riddle  of  Orpheus.1  The  philo- 
sophical perception  of  identity  through  endless 
mutations  of  form  makes  him  know  the  Pro- 
teus. What  else  am  I  who  laughed  or  wept  yes- 
terday, who  slept  last  night  like  a  corpse,  and 
this  morning  stood  and  ran  ?  And  what  see  I 


3a  HISTORY 

on  any  side  but  the  transmigrations  of  Pro- 
teus? I  can  symbolize  my  thought  by  using 
the  name  of  any  creature,  of  any  fact,  because 
every  creature  is  man  agent  or  patient.  Tanta- 
lus is  but  a  name  for  you  and  me.  Tantalus 
means  the  impossibility  of  drinking  the  waters 
of  thought  which  are  always  gleaming  and  wav- 
ing within  sight  of  the  soul.1  The  transmigra- 
tion of  souls  is  no  fable.  I  would  it  were ;  but 
men  and  women  are  only  half  human.  Every 
animal  of  the  barn-yard,  the  field  and  the  for- 
est, of  the  earth  and  of  the  waters  that  are 
under  the  earth,  has  contrived  to  get  a  footing 
and  to  leave  the  print  of  its  features  and  form 
in  some  one  or  other  of  these  upright,  heaven- 
facing  speakers.  Ah  !  brother,  stop  the  ebb  of 
thy  soul,  —  ebbing  downward  into  the  forms 
into  whose  habits  thou  hast  now  for  many  years 
slid.2  As  near  and  proper  to  us  is  also  that  old 
fable  of  the  Sphinx,  who  was  said  to  sit  in  the 
road-side  and  put  riddles  to  every  passenger. 
If  the  man  could  not  answer,  she  swallowed  him 
alive.  If  he  could  solve  the  riddle,  the  Sphinx 
was  slain.  What  is  our  life  but  an  endless  flight 
of  winged  facts  or  events?  In  splendid  variety 
these  changes  come,  all  putting  questions  to  the 
human  spirit.  Those  men  who  cannot  answer 


HISTORY  33 

by  a  superior  wisdom  these  facts  or  questions 
of  time,  serve  them.  Facts  encumber  them, 
tyrannize  over  them,  and  make  the  men  of 
routine,  the  men  of  sense,  in  whom  a  literal  obe- 
dience to  facts  has  extinguished  every  spark  of 
that  light  by  which  man  is  truly  man.  But  if 
the  man  is  true  to  his  better  instincts  or  senti- 
ments, and  refuses  the  dominion  of  facts,  as  one 
that  comes  of  a  higher  race;  remains  fast  by  the 
soul  and  sees  the  principle,  then  the  facts  fall 
aptly  and  supple  into  their  places ;  they  know 
their  master,  and  the  meanest  of  them  glorifies 
him.1 

See  in  Goethe's  Helena  the  same  desire  that 
every  word  should  be  a  thing.  These  figures, 
he  would  say,  these  Chirons,  Griffins,  Phorkyas, 
Helen  and  Leda,  are  somewhat,  and  do  exert  a 
specific  influence  on  the  mind.  So  far  then  are 
they  eternal  entities,  as  real  to-day  as  in  the 
first  Olympiad.  Much  revolving  them  he  writes 
out  freely  his  humor,  and  gives  them  body  to 
his  own  imagination.  And  although  that  poem 
be  as  vague  and  fantastic  as  a  dream,  yet  is  it 
much  more  attractive  than  the  more  regular 
dramatic  pieces  of  the  same  author,  for  the  rea- 
son that  it  operates  a  wonderful  relief  to  the 
mind  from  the  routine  of  customary  images,  — 


34  HISTORY 

awakens  the  reader's  invention  and  fancy  by 
the  wild  freedom  of  the  design,  and  by  the  un- 
ceasing succession  of  brisk  shocks  of  surprise. 

The  universal  nature,  too  strong  for  the  petty 
nature  of  the  bard,  sits  on  his  neck  and  writes 
through  his  hand ;  so  that  when  he  seems  to 
vent  a  mere  caprice  and  wild  romance,  the  issue 
is  an  exact  allegory.  Hence  Plato  said  that 
"  poets  utter  great  and  wise  things  which  they 
do  not  themselves  understand."  *  All  the  fic- 
tions of  the  Middle  Age  explain  themselves  as 
a  masked  or  frolic  expression  of  that  which  in 
grave  earnest  the  mind  of  that  period  toiled  to 
achieve.  Magic  and  all  that  is  ascribed  to  it  is 
a  deep  presentiment  of  the  powers  of  science. 
The  shoes  of  swiftness,  the  sword  of  sharpness, 
the  power  of  subduing  the  elements,  of  using 
the  secret  virtues  of  minerals,  of  understand1- 
ing  the  voices  of  birds,  are  the  obscure  efforts 
of  the  mind  in  a  right  direction.  The  preternat- 
ural prowess  of  the  hero,  the  gift  of  perpetual 
youth,  and  the  like,  are  alike  the  endeavor  of 
the  human  spirit  "  to  bend  the  shows  of  things 
to  the  desires  of  the  mind." 

In  Perceforest  and  Amadis  de  Gaul  a  garland 
and  a  rose  bloom  on  the  head  of  her  who  is 
faithful,  and  fade  on  the  brow  of  the  inconstant 


HISTORY  35 

In  the  story  of  the  Boy  and  the  Mantle  f  even 
a  mature  reader  may  be  surprised  with  a  glow 
of  virtuous  pleasure  at  the  triumph  of  the  gen- 
tle Venelas ;  and  indeed  all  the  postulates  of 
elfin  annals,  —  that  the  fairies  do  not  like  to 
be  named;  that  their  gifts  are  capricious  and 
not  to  be  trusted ;  that  who  seeks  a  treasure 
must  not  speak;  and  the  like, —  I  find  true  in 
Concord,  however  they  might  be  in  Cornwall 
or  Bretagne. 

Is  it  otherwise  in  the  newest  romance  ?  I  read 
the  Bride  of  Lammermoor.  Sir  William  Ash- 
ton  is  a  mask  for  a  vulgar  temptation,  Ravens- 
wood  Castle  a  fine  name  for  proud  poverty,  and 
the  foreign  mission  of  state  only  a  Bunyan  dis- 
guise for  honest  industry.  We  may  all  shoot  a 
wild  bull  that  would  toss  the  good  and  beauti- 
ful, by  fighting  down  the  unjust  and  sensual. 
Lucy  Ashton  is  another  name  for  fidelity,  which 
is  always  beautiful  and  always  liable  to  calamity 
in  this  world. 

But  along  with  the  civil  and  metaphysical 
history  of  man,  another  history  goes  daily  for- 
ward, —  that  of  the  external  world,  —  in  which 
he  is  not  less  strictly  implicated.  He  is  the 
compend  of  time ;  he  is  also  the  correlative  of 


36  HISTORY 

nature.  His  power  consists  in  the  multitude 
of  his  affinities,  in  the  fact  that  his  life  is  inter- 
twined with  the  whole  chain  of  organic  and  in- 
organic being.  In  old  Rome  the  public  roads 
beginning  at  the  Forum  proceeded  north,  south, 
east,  west,  to  the  centre  of  every  province  of  the 
empire,  making  each  market -town  of  Persia, 
Spain  and  Britain  pervious  to  the  soldiers  of 
the  capital :  so  out  of  the  human  heart  go  as  it 
were  highways  to  the  heart  of  every  object  in 
nature,  to  reduce  it  under  the  dominion  of  man. 
/A  man  is  a  bundle  of  relations,  a  knot  of  roots, 
/•  whose  flower  and  fruitage  is  the  world.  His 
faculties  refer  to  natures  out  of  him  and  pre- 
dict the  world  he  is  to  inhabit,  as  the  fins  of 
the  fish  foreshow  that  water  exists,  or  the  wings 
of  an  eagle  in  the  egg  presuppose  air.  He  can- 
not live  without  a  world.1  Put  Napoleon  in 
an  island  prison,  let  his  faculties  find  no  men 
to  act  on,  no  Alps  to  climb,  no  stake  to  play 
for,  and  he  would  beat  the  air,  and  appear  stu- 
pid. Transport  him  to  large  countries,  dense 
population,  complex  interests  and  antagonist 
power,  and  you  shall  see  that  the  man  Napo- 
leon, bounded  that  is  by  such  a  profile  and  out- 
line, is  not  the  virtual  Napoleon.  This  is  but 
Talbot's  shadow ;  — 


HISTORY  37 

"  His  substance  is  not  here. 
For  what  you  see  is  but  the  smallest  part 
And  least  proportion  of  humanity; 
But  were  the  whole  frame  here, 
It  is  of  such  a  spacious,  lofty  pitch, 
Your  roof  were  not  sufficient  to  contain  it."1 

Columbus  needs  a  planet  to  shape  his  course 
upon.  Newton  and  Laplace  need  myriads  of 
age  and  thick-strewn  celestial  areas.  One  may 
say  a  gravitating  solar  system  is  already  pro- 
phesied in  the  nature  of  Newton's  mind.  Not 
less  does  the  brain  of  Davy  or  of  Gay-Lussac, 
from  childhood  exploring  the  affinities  and 
repulsions  of  particles,  anticipate  the  laws  of 
organization.  Does  not  the  eye  of  the  human 
embryo  predict  the  light?  the  ear  of  Handel 
predict  the  witchcraft  of  harmonic  sound  ?  Do 
not  the  constructive  fingers  of  Watt,  Fulton, 
Whittemore,  Arkwright,  predict  the  fusible, 
hard,  and  temperable  texture  of  metals,  the 
properties  of  stone,  water,  and  wood  ?  Do  not 
the  lovely  attributes  of  the  maiden  child  predict 
the  refinements  and  decorations  of  civil  soci- 
ety? Here  also  we  are  reminded  of  the  action 
of  man  on  man.  A  mind  might  ponder  its 
thoughts  for  ages  and  not  gain  so  much  self- 
knowledge  as  the  passion  of  love  shall  teach  it 

56299 


38  HISTORY 

in  a  day.  Who  knows  himself  before  he  has 
been  thrilled  with  indignation  at  an  outrage,  or 
has  heard  an  eloquent  tongue,  or  has  shared  the 
throb  of  thousands  in  a  national  exultation  or 
alarm  ?  No  man  can  antedate  his  experience,  or 
guess  what  faculty  or  feeling  a  new  object  shall 
unlock,  any  more  than  he  can  draw  to-day  the 
face  of  a  person  whom  he  shall  see  to-morrow 
for  the  first  time. 

I  will  not  now  go  behind  the  general  statex 
ment  to  explore  the  reason  of  this  correspon- 
dency. Let  it  suffice  that  in  the  light  of  these 
two  facts,  namely,  that  the  mind  is  One,  and 
that  nature  is  its  correlative,  history  is  to  be 
read  and  written. 

Thus  in  all  ways  does  the  soul  concentrate 
and  reproduce  its  treasures  for  each  pupil.  He 
too  shall  pass  through  the  whole  cycle  of  expe- 
rience. He  shall  collect  into  a  focus  the  rays 
of  nature.  History  no  longer  shall  be  a  dull 
book.  It  shall  walk  incarnate  in  every  just  and 
wise  man.  You  shall  not  tell  me  by  languages 
and  titles  a  catalogue  of  the  volumes  you  have 
read.  You  shall  make  me  feel  what  periods  you 
have  lived.  A  man  shall  be  the  Temple  of 
Fame.  He  shall  walk,  as  the  poets  have  de- 
scribed that  goddess,  in  a  robe  painted  all  over 


HISTORY  39 

with  wonderful  events  and  experiences;  —  his 
own  form  and  features  by  their  exalted  intelli- 
gence shall  be  that  variegated  vest.  I  shall  find 
in  him  the  Foreworld;  in  his  childhood  the 
Age  of  Gold,  the  Apples  of  Knowledge,  the 
Argonautic  Expedition,  the  calling  of  Abra- 
ham, the  building  of  the  Temple,  the  Advent 
of  Christ,  Dark  Ages,  the  Revival  of  Letters, 
the  Reformation,  the  discovery  of  new  lands, 
the  opening  of  new  sciences  and  new  regions  in 
man.  He  shall  be  the  priest  of  Pan,  and  bring 
with  him  into  humble  cottages  the  blessing  of 
the  morning  stars,  and  all  the  recorded  benefits 
of  heaven  and  earth. 

Is  there  somewhat  overweening  in  this  claim  ? 
Then  I  reject  all  I  have  written,  for  what  is  the 
use  of  pretending  to  know  what  we  know  not  ? 
But  it  is  the  fault  of  our  rhetoric  that  we  can- 
not strongly  state  one  fact  without  seeming  to 
belie  some  other.  I  hold  our  actual  knowledge 
very  cheap.  Hear  the  rats  in  the  wall,  see  the 
lizard  on  the  fence,  the  fungus  under  foot,  the 
lichen  on  the  log.  What  do  I  know  sympa- 
thetically, morally,  of  either  of  these  worlds  of 
life  ?  As  old  as  the  Cauca-sian  man,  —  perhaps 
older,  —  these  creatures  have  kept  their  counsel 
beside  him,  and  there  is  no  record  of  any  word 


40  HISTORY 

or  sign  that  has  passed  from  one  to  the  other.* 
What  connection  do  the  books  show  between 
the  fifty  or  sixty  chemical  elements  and  the  his- 
torical eras?  Nay,  what  does  history  yet  re- 
cord of  the  metaphysical  annals  of  man  ?  What 
light  does  it  shed  on  those  mysteries  which  we 
hide  under  the  names  Death  and  Immortality? 
Yet  every  history  should  be  written  in  a  wis- 
dom which  divined  the  range  of  our  affinities 
and  looked  at  facts  as  symbols.  I  am  ashamed 
to  see  what  a  shallow  village  tale  our  so-called 
History  is.  How  many  times  we  must  say 
Rome,  and  Paris,  and  Constantinople !  What 
does  Rome  know  of  rat  and  lizard?  What  are 
Olympiads  and  Consulates  to  these  neighbor- 
ing systems  of  being?  Nay,  what  food  or  expe- 
rience or  succor  have  they  for  the  Esquimaux 
seal-hunter,  for  the  Kanaka  in  his  canoe,  for 
the  fisherman,  the  stevedore,  the  porter  ? 

Broader  and  deeper  we  must  write  our  annals, 
—  from  an  ethical  reformation,  from  an  influx 
of  the  ever  new,  ever  sanative  conscience,  —  if 
we  would  trulier  express  our  central  and  wide- 
related  nature,  instead  of  this  old  chronology 
of  selfishness  and  pride  to  which  we  have  too 
long  lent  our  eyes.  Already  that  day  exists  for 
us,  shines  in  on  us  at  unawares,  but  the  path  of 


HISTORY  41 

science  and  of  letters  is  not  the  way  into  nature. 
The  idiot,  the  Indian,  the  child  and  unschooled 
farmer's  boy  stand  nearer  to  the  light  by  which 
nature  is  to  be  read,  than  the  dissector  or  the 
antiquary.1 


SELF-RELIANCE 

"Ne  te  quasi veris  extra." 

MAN  is  his  own  star;  and  the  soul  that  can 
Render  an  honest  and  a  perfect  man, 
Commands  all  light,  all  influence,  all  fate; 
Nothing  to  him  falls  early  or  too  late. 
Our  acts  our  angels  are,  or  good  or  ill, 
Our  fatal  shadows  that  walk  by  us  still. 

Epilogut  to  Btaumont  and  Fletcher' t  Honest  Man's  Fortut 


Cast  ihe  bantling  on  the  rocks, 
Suckle  him  with  the  she- wolf's  teat, 
Wintered  with  the  hawk  and  fox, 
Power  and  speed  be  hands  and  feet. 


yu/v\ 


SELF-RELIANCE 

•  .-W--'  V        ,  V6** 

I  READ  the  other  day  some  verses  written 
by  an  eminent  painter  which  were  original 
and  not  conventional.1  The  soul  always  hears 
an  admonition  in  such  lines,  let  the  subject  be 
what  it  may.  The  sentiment  they  instil  is  of 
more  value  than  any  thought  they  may  contain. 
To  believe  your  own  thought,  to  believe  that 
what  is  true  for  you  in  your  private  heart  is  true 
for  all  men,  —  that  is  genius.  Speak  your  latent 
conviction,  and  it  shall  be  the  universal  sense ; 
for  the  inmost  in  due  time  becomes  the  outmost, 
and  our  first  thought  is  rendered  back  to  us  by 
the  trumpets  of  the  Last  Judgment.  Familiar 
as  the  voice  of  the  mind  is  to  each,  the  highest 
merit  we  ascribe  to  Moses,  Plato  and  Milton  is 
that  they  set  at  naught  books  and  traditions,  and 
spoke  not  what  men,  but  what  they  thought. 
A  man  should  learn  to  detect  and  watch  that 
gleam  of  light  which  flashes  across  his  mind  from 
within,  more  than  the  lustre  of  the  firmament 
of  bards  and  sages.  Yet  he  dismisses  without 
notice  his  thought,  because  it  is  his.  In  every 
work  of  genius  we  recognize  our  own  rejected 
Jioughts ;  they  come  back  to  us  with  a  certain 


4b  SELF-RELIANCE 

alienated  majesty.1  Great  works  of  art  have  no 
more  affecting  lesson  for  us  than  this.  They 
teach  us  to  abide  by  our  spontaneous  impres- 
sion with  good-humored  inflexibility  then  most 
when  the  whole  cry  of  voices  is  on  the  other 
side.  Else  to-morrow  a  stranger  will  say  with 
masterly  good  sense  precisely  what  we  have 
thought  and  felt  all  the  time,  and  we  shall  be 
forced  to  take  with  shame  our  own  opinion  from 
another. 

There  is  a  time  in  every  man's  education  when 
he  arrives  at  the  conviction  that  envy  is  igno- 
rance ;  that  imitation  is  suicide  ;•  that  he  must 
take  himself  for  better  for  worse  as  his  portion  ; 
that  though  the  wide  universe  is  full  of  good, 
no  kernel  of  nourishing  corn  can  come  to  him 
but  through  his  toil  bestowed  on  that  plot  of 
ground  which  is  given  to  him  to  till.  The  power 
which  resides  in  him  is  new  in  nature,  and  none 
but  he  knows  what  that  is  which  he  can  do,  nor 
does  he  know  until  he  has  tried.  Not  for  no- 
thing one  face,  one  character,  one  fact,  makes 
much  impression  on  him,  and  another  none. 
This  sculpture  in  the  memory  is  not  without 
preestablished  harmony.  The  eye  was  placed 
where  one  ray  should  fall,  that  it  might  testify 
of  that  particular  ray.  We  but  half  express  our- 


SELF-RELIANCE  47 

selves,  and  are  ashamed  of  that  divine  idea  which 
each  of  us  represents.1  It  may  be  safely  trusted 
as  proportionate  and  of  good  issues,  so  it  be 
faithfully  imparted,  but  God  will  not  have  his 
work  made  manifest  by  cowards. (A  man  is  re- 
lieved and  gay  when  he  has  put  his  heart  into 
1  his  work  and  done  his  best ;  but  what  he  has 
laid  or  done  otherwise  shall  give  him  no  peaceT) 
It  is  a  deliverance  which  does  not  deliver.  In 
the  attempt  his  genius  deserts  him;  no  muse 
befriends ;  no  invention,  no  hope. 

Trust  thyself:  every  heart  vibrates  to  that 
iron  string.  Accept  the  place  the  divine  provi- 
dence has  found  for  you,  the  society  of  your 
contemporaries,  the  connection  of  events.  Great 
men  have  always  done  so,  and  confided  them- 
selves childlike  to  the  genius  of  their  age,  betray- 
ing their  perception  that  the  absolutely  trustwor- 
thy was  seated  at  their  heart,  working  through 
their  hands,  predominating  in  all  their  being. 
And  we  are  now  men,  and  must  accept  in  the 
highest  mind  the  same  transcendent  destiny ; 
and  not  minors  and  invalids  in  a  protected  cor- 
ner, not  cowards  fleeing  before  a  revolution,  but 
guides,  redeemers  and  benefactors,  obeying  the 
Almighty  effort  and  advancing  on  Chaos  and  the 
Dark. 


f8  SELF-RELIANCE 

What  pretty  oracles  nature  yields  us  on  this 
text  in  the  face  and  behavior  of  children,  babes, 
and  even  brutes !  That  divided  and  rebel  mind, 
that  distrust  of  a  sentiment  because  our  arith- 
metic has  computed  the  strength  and  means 
opposed  to  our  purpose,  these  have  not.  Their 
mind  being  whole,  their  eye  is  as  yet  uncon- 
quered,  and  when  we  look  in  their  faces  we  are 
disconcerted.  Infancy  conforms  to  nobody  ;  all 
conform  to  it ;  so  that  one  babe  commonly 
makes  four  or  five  out  of  the  adults  who  prattle 
and  play  to  it.  So  God  has  armed  youth  and 
prberty  and  manhood  no  less  with  its  own  pi- 
quancy and  charm,  and  made  it  enviable  and 
gracious  and  its  claims  not  to  be  put  by,  if  it 
will  stand  by  itself.  Do  not  think  the  youth  has 
no  force,  because  he  cannot  speak  to  you  and 
me.  Hark !  in  the  next  room  his  voice  is  suffi- 
ciently clear  and  emphatic.  It  seems  he  knows 
how  to  speak  to  his  contemporaries.  Bashful  or 
bold  then,  he  will  know  how  to  make  us  seniors 
very  unnecessary.* 

The  nonchalance  of  boys  who  are  sure  of  a 
dinner,  and  would  disdain  as  much  as  a  lord  to 
do  or  say  aught  to  conciliate  one,  is  the  healthy 
attitude  of  human  nature.  A  boy  is  in  the  par- 
lor what  the  p!t~is  in  the  playhouse;  indepen- 


SELF-RELIANCE  49 

dent,  irresponsible,  looking  out  from  his  corner 
on  such  people  and  facts  as  pass  by,  he  tries  and 
sentences  them  on  their  merits,  in  the  swift, 
summary  way  of  boys,  as  good,  bad,  interesting, 
silly,  eloquent,  troublesome.  He  cumbers  him- 
self never  about  consequences,  about  interests  ; 
he  gives  an  independent,  genuine  verdict.  You 
must  court  him ;  he  does  not  court  you.  But 
the  man  is  as  it  were  clapped  into  jail  by  his 
consciousness.  As  soon  as  he  has  once  acted 
or  spoken  with  'eclat  he  is  a  committed  person, 
watched  by  the  sympathy  or  the  hatred  of  hun- 
dreds, whose  affections  must  now  enter  into  his 
account.  There  is  no  Lethe  for  this.  Ah,  that  he 
could  pass  again  into  his  neutrality !  Who  can 
thus  avoid  all  pledges  and,  having  observed,  ob- 
serve again  from  the  same  unaffected,  unbiased, 
unbribable,  unaffrighted  innocence,  —  must  al- 
ways be  formidable.  He  would  utter  opinions 
on  all  passing  affairs,  which  being  seen  to  be  not 
private  but  necessary,  would  sink  like  darts  into 
the  ear  of  men  and  put  them  in  fear.1 

These  are  the  voices  which  we  hear  in  soli- 
tude, but  they  grow  faint  and  inaudible  as  we 
enter  into  the  world.  Society  everywhere  is  in 
conspiracy  against  the  manhood  of  every  one 
of  its  members.  Society  is  a  joint-stock  com- 


50  SELF-RELIANCE 

pany,  in  which  the  members  agree,  for  the  bet- 
ter securing  of  his  bread  to  each  shareholder,  to 
surrender  the  liberty  and  culture  of  the  eater. 
The  virtue  in  most  request  is  conformity.  Self- 
reliance  is  its  aversion.  It  loves  not  realities 
and  creators,  but  names  and  customs. 

Whoso  would  be  a  man,  must  be  a  noncon- 
formist. He  who  would  gather  immortal  palms 
must  not  be  hindered  by  the  name  of  goodness, 
but  must  explore  if  it  be  goodness.  Nothing 
is  at  last  sacred  but  the  integrity  of  your  own 
mind.  Absolve  you  to  yourself,  and  you  shall 
have  the  suffrage  of  the  world.  I  remember  an 
answer  which  when  quite  young  I  was  prompted 
to  make  to  a  valued  adviser  who  was  wont  to 
importune  me  with  the  dear  old  doctrines  of  the 
church.  On  my  saying,  "  What  have  I  to  do 
with  the  sacredness  of  traditions,  if  I  live  wholly 
from  within  ?  "  my  friend  suggested,  —  "  But 
these  impulses  may  be  from  below,  not  from 
above."  I  replied,  "  They  do  not  seem  to  me 
to  be  such ;  but  if  I  am  the  Devil's  child,  I  will 
live  then  from  the  Devil."  No  law  can  be  sa- 
cred to  me  but  that  of  my  nature.  Good  and 
bad  are  but  names  very  readily  transferable  to 
that  or  this  ;  the  only  right  is  what  is  after  my  ' 
constitution  ;  the  only  wrong  what  is  against  it. 


SELF-RELIANCE  51 

A  man  is  to  carry  himself  in  the  presence  of  all 
opposition  as  if  every  thing  were  titular  and 
ephemeral  but  he.  I  am  ashamed  to  think  how 
easily  we  capitulate  to  badges  and  names,  to 
large  societies  and  dead  institutions.  Every 
decent  and  well-spoken  individual  affects  and 
sways  me  more  than  is  right.  I  ought  to  go 
upright  and  vital,  and  speak  the  rude  truth  in 
all  ways.  If  malice  and  vanity  wear  the  coat  of 
philanthropy,  shall  that  pass  ?  If  an  angry  bigot 
assumes  this  bountiful  cause  of  Abolition,  and 
comes  to  me  with  his  last  news  from  Barbadoes, 
why  should  I  not  say  to  him,  c  Go  love  thy 
infant ;  love  thy  wood-chopper ;  be  good-na- 
tured and  modest ;  have  that  grace  ;  and  never 
varnish  your  hard,  uncharitable  ambition  with 
this  incredible  tenderness  for  black  folk  a  thou- 
sand miles  off.  Thy  love  afar  is  spite  at  home.' 
Rough  and  graceless  would  be  such  greeting, 
but  truth  is  handsomer  than  the  affectation  of 
love.  Your  goodness  must  have  some  edge  to 
it,  —  else  it  is  none.  The  doctrine  of  hatred 
must  be  preached,  as  the  counteraction  of  the 
doctrine  of  love,  when  that  pules  and  whines. 
I  shun  father  and  mother  and  wife  and  brother 
when  my  genius  calls  me.  I  would  write  on  the 
lintels  of  the  door  -  post,  Whim.  I  hope  it  is 


52  SELF-RELIANCE 

somewhat  better  than  whim  at  last,  but  we  can- 
not spend  the  day  in  explanation.1  Expect  me 
not  to  show  cause  why  I  seek  or  why  I  exclude 
company.  Then  again,  do  not  tell  me,  as  a 
good  man  did  to-day,  of  my  obligation  to  put 
all  poor  men  in  good  situations.  Are  they  my 
poor  ?  I  tell  thee,  thou  foolish  philanthropist, 
that  I  grudge  the  dollar,  the  dime,  the  cent  I 
give  to  such  men  as  do  not  belong  to  me  and 
to  whom  I  do  not  belong.  There  is  a  class  of 
persons  to  whom  by  all  spiritual  affinity  I  am 
bought  and  sold  ;  for  them  I  will  go  to  prison 
if  need  be  ;  but  your  miscellaneous  popular 
charities  ;  the  education  at  college  of  fools  ; 
the  building  of  meeting-houses  to  the  vain  end 
to  which  many  now  stand ;  alms  to  sots,  and 
the  thousand-fold  Relief  Societies ;  —  though 
I  confess  with  shame  I  sometimes  succumb  and 
give  the  dollar,  it  is  a  wicked  dollar,  which  by 
and  by  I  shall  have  the  manhood  to  with- 
hold.' 

Virtues  are,  in  the  popular  estimate,  rather 
the  exception  than  the  rule.  There  is  the  man 
and  his  virtues.  Men  do  what  is  called  a  good 
action,  as  some  piece  of  courage  or  charity,  much 
as  they  would  pay  a  fine  in  expiation  of  daily 
non-appearance  on  parade.  Their  works  are 


SELF-RELIANCE  53 

done  as  an  apology  or  extenuation  of  their  liv- 
ing in  the  world,  —  as  invalids  and  the  insane 
pay  a  high  board.  Their  virtues  are  penances. 

T  fjn jmj-  wisJLfn  evpiafpj  buf  JgMiye.      My  life 

is  for  itself  and  not  for  a  spectacle.  I  much 
prefer  that  it  should  be  of  a  lower  strain,  so  it 
be  genuine  and  equal,  than  that  it  should  be 
glittering  and  unsteady.  I  wish  it  to  be  sound 
and  sweet,  and  not  to  need  diet  and  bleeding. 
I  ask  primary  evidence  that  you  are  a  man,  and 
refuse  this  appeal  from  the  man  to  his  actions. 
I  know  that  for  myself  it  makes  no  difference 
whether  I  do  or  forbear  those  actions  which  are 
reckoned  excellent.  I  cannot  consent  to  pay  for 
a  privilege  where  I  have  intrinsic  right.  Few 
and  mean  as  my  gifts  may  be,  I  actually  am, 
and  do  not  need  for  my  own  assurance  or  the 
assurance  of  my  fellows  any  secondary  testi- 
mony. 

-  What  I  must  do  is  all  that  concerns  me,  not 
what  the  people  think.  This  rule,  equally  ardu- 
ous in  actual  and  in  intellectual  life,  may  serve 
for  the  whole  distinction  between  greatness  and 
meanness.  It  is  the  harder  because  you  will  al- 
ways find  those  who  think  they  know  what  is 
your  duty  better  than  you  know  it.  It  is  easy 
in  the  world  to  live  after  the  world's  opinion ; 


54  SELF-RELIANCE 

it  is  easy  in  solitude  to  live  after  our  own ;  but 
the'great  man  is  he  who  in  the  midst  of  the 
crowd  keeps  with  perfect  sweetness  the  inde- 
pendence of  solitude. 

The  objection  to  conforming  to  usages  that 
have  become  dead  to  you  is  that  it  scatters  your 
force.  It  loses  your  time  and  blurs  the  impres- 
sion of  your  character.  If  you  maintain  a  dead 
church,  contribute  to  a  dead  Bible-society,  vote 
with  a  great  party  either  for  the  government  or 
against  it,1  spread  your  table  like  base  house- 
keepers,—  under  all  these  screens  I  have  diffi- 
culty to  detect  the  precise  man  you  are :  and  of 
course  so  much  force  is  withdrawn  from  your 
proper  life.  But  do  your  work,  and  I  shall  know 
you.  Do  your  work,  and  you  shall  reinforce 
yourself.  A  man  must  consider  what  a  blind- 
man's-buff  is  this  game  of  conformity.  I  f  I  know 
your  sect  I  anticipate  your  argument.  I  hear  a 
preacher  announce  for  his  text  and  topic  the  ex- 
pediency of  one  of  the  institutions  of  his  church. 
Do  I  not  know  beforehand  that  not  possibly  can 
he  say  a  new  and  spontaneous  word  ?  Do  I  not 
know  that  with  all  this  ostentation  of  examin- 
ing the  grounds  of  the  institution  he  will  do  no 
such  thing  ?  Do  I  not  know  that  he  is  pledged 
to  himself  not  to  look  but  at  one  side,  the 


SELF-RELIANCE  55 

permitted  side,  not  as  a  man,  but  as  a  parish 
minister  ?  He  is  a  retained  attorney,  and  these 
airs  of  the  bench  are  the  emptiest  affectation. 
Well,  most  men  have  bound  their  eyes  with  one 
or  another  handkerchief,  and  attached  them- 
selves to  some  one  of  these  communities  of 
opinion.  This  conformity  makes  them  not  false 
in  a  few  particulars,  authors  of  a  few  lies,  but 
false  in  all  particulars.  Their  every  truth  is 
not  quite  true.  Their  two  is  not  the  real  two, 
their  four  not  the  real  four ;  so  that  every  word 
they  say  chagrins  us  and  we  know  not  where  to 
begin  to  set  them  right.  Meantime  nature  is 
not  slow  to  equip  us  in  the  prison-uniform  of 
the  party  to  which  we  adhere.  We  come  to  wear 
one  cut  of  face  and  figure,  and  acquire  by  de- 
grees the  gentlest  asinine  expression.  There  is 
a  mortifying  experience  in  particular,  which  does 
not  fail  to  wreak  itself  also  in  the  general  his- 
tory ;  I  mean  "  the  foolish  face  of  praise,"  the 
forced  smile  which  we  put  on  in  company  where 
we  do  not  feel  at  ease,  in  answer  to  conversation 
which  does  not  interest  us.  The  muscles,  not 
spontaneously  moved  but  moved  by  a  low  usurp- 
ing wilfulness,  grow  tight  about  the  outline  of 
the  face,  with  the  most  disagreeable  sensation. 
For  nonconformity  the  world  whips  you  with 

V 


56  SELF-RELIANCE 

its  displeasure.  And  therefore  a  man  must  know 
how  to  estimate  a  sour  face.  The  by-standers 
look  askance  on  him  in  the  public  street  or  in 
the  friend's  parlor.  If  this  aversion  had  its  ori- 
gin in  contempt  and  resistance  like  his  own  he 
might  well  go  home  with  a  sad  countenance  ;  but 
the  sour  faces  of  the  multitude,  like  their  sweet 
faces,  have  no  deep  cause,  but  are  put  on  and 
off  as  the  wind  blows  and  a  newspaper  directs. 
Yet  is  the  discontent  of  the  multitude  more  for- 
midable than  that  of  the  senate  and  the  college. 
It  is  easy  enough  for  a  firm  man  who  knows  the 
world  to  brook  the  rage  of  the  cultivated  classes. 
Their  rage  is  decorous  and  prudent,  for  they  are 
timid,  as  being  very  vulnerable  themselves.  But 
when  to  their  feminine  rage  the  indignation  of 
the  people  is  added,  when  the  ignorant  and  the 
poor  are  aroused,  when  the  unintelligent  brute 
force  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  society  is  made 
to  growl  and  mow,  it  needs  the  habit  of  magna- 
nimity and  religion  to  treat  it  godlike  as  a  trifle 
of  no  concernment. 

The  other  terror  that  scares  us  from  self-trust 
is  our  consistency ;  a  reverence  for  our  past  act 
or  word  because  the  eyes  of  others  have  no  other 
data  for  computing  our  orbit  than  our  past  acts, 
and  we  are  loth  to  disappoint  them. 


SELF-RELIANCE  57 

But  why  should  you  keep  your  head  over 
your  shoulder  ?  Why  drag  about  this  corpse  of 
your  memory,  lest  you  contradict  somewhat  you 
have  stated  in  this  or  that  public  place  ?  Sup- 
pose you  should  contradict  yourself;  what  then  ? 
It  seems  to  be  a  rule  of  wisdom  never  to  rely 
on  your  memory  alone,  scarcely  even  in  acts  of 
pure  memory,  but  to  bring  the  past  for  judg- 
ment into  the  thousand-eyed  present,  and  live 
ever  in  a  new  day.  In  your  metaphysics  you 
have  denied  personality  to  the  Deity,  yet  when 
the  devout  motions  of  the  soul  come,  yield  to 
them  heart  and  life,  though  they  should  clothe 
God  with  shape  and  color.1  Leave  your  theory, 
as  Joseph  his  coat  in  the  hand  of  the  harlot,  and 
flee. 

A  foolish  consistency  is  the  hobgoblin  of  lit- 
tle minds,  adored  by  little  statesmen  and  philo- 
sophers and  divines.  With  consistency  a  great 
soul  has  simply  nothing  to  do.  He  may  as  well 
concern  himself  with  his  shadow  on  the  wall. 
Speak  what  you  think  now  in  hard  words  and 
to-morrow  speak  what  to-morrow  thinks  in  hard 
words  again,  though  it  contradict  every  thing  you 
said  to-day.  — { Ah,  so  you  shall  be  sure  to  be 
misunderstood.'  —  Is  it  so  bad  then  to  be  mis- 
understood ?  Pythagoras  was  misunderstood, 


58  SELF-RELIANCE 

and  Socrates,  and  Jesus,  and  Luther,  and  Coper* 
nicus,  and  Galileo,  and  Newton,  and  every  pure 
and  wise  spirit  that  ever  took  flesh.  To  be  great 
is  to  be  misunderstood.1 

I  suppose  no  man  can  violate  his  nature.  All 
the  sallies  of  his  will  are  rounded  in  by  the  law 
of  his  being,  as  the  inequalities  of  Andes  and 
Himmaleh  are  insignificant  in  the  curve  of  the 
sphere.  Nor  does  it  matter  how  you  gauge  and 
try  him.  A  character  is  like  an  acrostic  or  Alex- 
andrian stanza  ;  —  read  it  forward,  backward,  or 
across,  it  still  spells  the  same  thing.  In  this 
pleasing  contrite  wood-life  which  God  allows  me, 
let  me  record  day  by  day  my  honest  thought 
without  prospect  or  retrospect,  and,  I  cannot 
doubt,  it  will  be  found  symmetrical,  though  I 
mean  it  not  and  see  it  not.  My  book  should 
smell  of  pines  and  resound  with  the  hum  of 
insects.8  The  swallow  over  my  window  should 
interweave  that  thread  or  straw  he  carries  in  his 
bill  into  my  web  also.  We  pass  for  what  we 
are.  Character  teaches  above  our  wills.  Men 
imagine  that  they  communicate  their  virtue  or 
vice  only  by  overt  actions,  and  do  not  see  that 
virtue  or  vice  emit  a  breath  every  moment. 

There  will  be  an  agreement  in  whatever  vari- 
ety of  actions,  sq  they  be  each  honest  and  natu- 


SELF-RELIANCE  59 

ral  in  their  hour.  For  of  one  will,  the  actions 
will  be  harmonious,  however  unlike  they  seem. 
These  varieties  are  lost  sight  of  at  a  little  dis- 
tance, at  a  little  height  of  thought.  One  ten- 
dency unites  them  all.  The  voyage  of  the  best 
ship  is  a  zigzag  line  of  a  hundred  tacks.  See  the 
line  from  a  sufficient  distance,  and  it  straightens 
itself  to  the  average  tendency.  Your  genuine 
action  will  explain  itself  and  will  explain  your 
other  genuine  actions.  Your  conformity  explains 
nothing.  Act  singly,  and  what  you  have  already 
done  singly  will  justify  you  now.  Greatness 
appeals  to  the  future.  If  I  can  be  firm  enough 
to-day  to  do  right  and  scorn  eyes,  I  must  have 
done  so  much  right  before  as  to  defend  me 
now.  Be  it  how  it  will,  do  right  now.  Always 
scorn  appearances  and  you  always  may.  The 
force  of  character  is  cumulative.  All  the  fore- 
gone days  of  virtue  work  their  health  into  this. 
What  makes  the  majesty  of  the  heroes  of  the 
senate  and  the  field,  which  so  fills  the  imagi- 
nation ?  The  consciousness  of  a  train  of  great 
days  and  victories  behind.  They  shed  a  united 
light  on  the  advancing  actor.  He  is  attended 
as  by  a  visible  escort  of  angels.  That  is  it  which 
throws  thunder  into  Chatham's  voice,  and  dig- 
nity into  Washington's  port,  and  America  into 


60  SELF-RELIANCE 

Adams's  eye.  Honor  is  venerable  to  us  because 
it  is  no  ephemera.  It  is  always  'ancient  virtue. 
We  worship  it  to-day  because  it  is  not  of  to- 
day. We  love  it  and  pay  it  homage  because  it 
is  not  a  trap  for  our  love  and  homage,  but  is 
self-dependent,  self-derived,  and  therefore  of 
an  old  immaculate  pedigree,  even  if  shown  in  a 
young  person. 

I  hope  in  these  days  we  have  heard  the  last 
of  conformity  and  consistency.  Let  the  words 
be  gazetted  and  ridiculous  henceforward.  In- 
stead of  the  gong  for  dinner,  let  us  hear  a  whis- 
tle from  the  Spartan  fife.  Let  us  never  bow 
and  apologize  more.  A  great  man  is  coming  to 
eat  at  my  house.  I  do  not  wish  to  please  him ; 
I  wish  that  he  should  wish  to  please  me.  I 
will  stand  here  for  humanity,  and  though  I 
would  make  it  kind,  I  would  make  it  true. 
Let  us  affront  and  reprimand  the  smooth  me- 
diocrity and  squalid  contentment  of  the  times, 
and  hurl  in  the  face  of  custom  and  trade  and 
office,  the  fact  which  is  the  upshot  of  all  history, 
that  there  is  a  great  responsible  Thinker  and 
Actor  working  wherever  a  man  works ;  that  a 
true  man  belongs  to  no  other  time  or  place, 
but  is  the  centre  of  things.  Where  he  is,  there 
is  nature.  He  measures  you  and  all  men  and 


SELF-RELIANCE  61 

all  events.  Ordinarily,  every  body-  in  society 
reminds  us  of  somewhat  else,  or  of  some  other 
person.  Character,  reality,  reminds  you  of  no- 
thing else  ;  it  takes  place  of  the  whole  creation. 
The  man  must  be  so  much  that  he  must  make 
all  circumstances  indifferent.  Every  true  man 
is  a  cause,  a  country,  and  an  age ;  requires  infi- 
nite spaces  and  numbers  and  time  fully  to  ac- 
complish his  design  ;  —  and  posterity  seem  to 
follow  his  steps  as  a  train  of  clients.  A  man 
Caesar  is  born,  and  for  ages  after  we  have  a 
Roman  Empire.  Christ  is  born,  and  millions 
of  minds  so  grow  and  cleave  to  his  genius  that 
he  is  confounded  with  virtue  and  the  possible  of 
man.  An  institution  is  the  lengthened  shadow 
of  one  man ;  as,  Monachrsm,  of  the  Hermit 
Antony;  the  Reformation,  of  Luther;  Quaker- 
ism, of  Fox ;  Methodism,  of  Wesley  ;  Aboli- 
tion, of  Clarkson.  Scipio,  Milton  called  "the 
height  of  Rome  ;  "  and  all  history  resolves  itself 
very  easily  into  the  biography  of  a  few  stout 
and  earnest  persons.1 

Let  a  man  then  know  his  worth,  and  keep 
things  under  his  feet.  Let  him  not  peep  or 
steal,  or  skulk  up. and  down  with  the  air  of  a 
charity-boy,  a  bastard,  or  an  interloper  in  the 
world  which  exists  for  him.  But  the  man  in  the 


62  SELF-RELIANCE 

street,  finding  no  worth  in  himself  which  corre- 
sponds to  the  force  which  built  a  tower  or  sculp- 
tured a  marble  god,  feels  poor  when  he  looks 
on  these.  To  him  a  palace,  a  statue,  or  a  costly 
book  have  an  alien  and  forbidding  air,  much 
like  a  gay  equipage,  and  seem  to  say  like  that, 
u  Who  are  you,  Sir  ?  "  Yet  they  all  are  his,  suit- 
ors for  his  notice,  petitioners  to  his  faculties  that 
they  will  come  out  and  take  possession.  The 
picture  waits  for  my  verdict;  it  is  not  to  com- 
mand me,  but  I  am  to  settle  its  claims  to  praise. 
That  popular  fable  of  the  sot  who  was  picked 
up  dead -drunk  in  the  street,  carried  to  the 
duke's  house,  washed  and  dressed  and  laid  in 
the  duke's  bed,  and,  on  his  waking,  treated  with 
all  obsequious  ceremony  like  the  duke,  and  as- 
sift-ed  that  he  had  been  insane,  owes  its  popu- 
larity to  the  fact  that  it  symbolizes  so  well  the 
state  of  man,  who  is  in  the  world  a  sort  of  sot, 
but  now  and  then  wakes  up,  exercises  his  reason 
and  finds  himself  a  true  prince.1 

Our  reading  is  mendicant  and  sycophantic. 
In  history  our  imagination  plays  us  false.  King- 
dom and  lordship,  power  and  estate,  are  a  gau- 
dier vocabulary  than  private  John  and  Edward 
in  a  small  house  and  common  day's  work ;  but 
the  things  of  life  are  the  same  to  both ;  the  sum 


SELF-RELIANCE  63 

total  of  both  is  the  same.  Why  all  this  defer- 
ence to  Alfred  and  Scanderbeg  and  Gustavus  ? 
Suppose  they  were  virtuous ;  did  they  wear  out 
virtue  ?  As  great  a  stake  depends  on  your  pri- 
vate act  to-day  as  followed  their  public  and 
renowned  steps.  When  private  men  shall  act 
with  original  views,  the  lustre  will  be  transferred 
from  the  actions  of  kings  to  those  of  gentlemen. 

The  world  has  been  instructed  by  its  kings, 
who  have  so  magnetized  the  eyes  of  nations. 
It  has  been  taught  by  this  colossal  symbol  the 
mutual  reverence  that  is  due  from  man  to  man. 
The  joyful  loyalty  with  which  men  have  every- 
where suffered  the  king,  the  noble,  or  the  great 
proprietor  to  walk  among  them  by  a  law  of  his 
own,  make  his  own  scale  of  men  and  things  and 
reverse  theirs,  pay  for  benefits  not  with  money 
but  with  honor,  and  represent  the  law  in  his 
person,  was  the  hieroglyphic  by  which  they  ob- 
scurely signified  their  consciousness  of  their  own 
right  and  comeliness,  the  right  of  every  man. 

The  magnetism  which  all  original  action  ex- 
erts is  explained  when  we  inquire  the  reason  of 
self-trust.  Who  is  the  Trustee  ?  What  is  the 
aboriginal  Self,  on  which  a  universal  reliance 
may  be  grounded  ?  What  is  the  nature  and 
power  of  that  science-baffling  star,  without  par- 


64  SELF-RELIANCE 

allax,  without  calculable  elements,  which  shoots 
a  ray  of  beauty  even  into  trivial  and  impure 
actions,  if  the  least  mark  of  independence  ap- 
pear ?  The  inquiry  leads  us  to  that  source,  at 
once  the  essence  of  genius,  of  virtue,  and  of 
life,  which  we  call  Spontaneity  or  Instinct.  We 
denote  this  primary  wisdom  as  Intuition,  whilst 
all  later  teachings  are  tuitions.1  In  that  deep 
it>rce,  the  last  fact  behind  which  analysis  cannot 
go,  all  things  find  their  common  origin.  For 
the  sense  of  being  which  in  calm  hours  rises,  we 
know  not  how,  in  the  soul,  is  not  diverse  from 
things,  from  space,  from  light,  from  time,  from 
man,  but  one  with  them  and  proceeds  obviously 
from  the  same  source  whence  their  life  and  being 
also  proceed.  We  first  share  the  life  by  which 
things  exist  and  afterwards  see  them  as  appear- 
ances in  nature  and  forget  that  we  have  shared 
their  cause.  Here  is  the  fountain  of  action  and 
of  thought.  Here  are  the  lungs  of  that  inspi- 
ration which  giveth  man  wisdom  and  which 
cannot  be  denied  without  impiety  and  atheism. 
We  lie  in  the  lap  of  immense  intelligence,  which 
makes  us  receivers  of  its  truth  and  organs  of 
its  activity.  When  we  discern  justice,  when  we 
discern  truth,  we  do  nothing  of  ourselves,  but 
allow  a  passage  to  its  beams.  If  we  ask  whence 


SELF-RELIANCE  65 

this  comes,  if  we  seek  to  pry  into  the  soul 
that  causes,  all  philosophy  is  at  fault.  Its  pre- 
sence or  its  absence  is  all  we  can  affirm.  Every 
man  discriminates  between  the  voluntary  acts 
of  his  mind  and  his  involuntary  perceptions, 
and  knows  that  to  his  involuntary  perceptions  a 
perfect  faith  is  due.  He  may  err  in  the  expres- 
sion of  them,  but  he  knows  that  these  things 
are  so,  like  day  and  night,  not  to  be  disputed. 
My  wilful  actions  and  acquisitions  are  but  rov- 
ing ;  —  the  idlest  reverie,  the  faintest  native 
emotion,  command  my  curiosity  and  respect. 
Thoughtless  people  contradict  as  readily  the 
statement  of  perceptions  as  of  opinions,  or  rather 
much  more  readily;  for  they  do  not  distinguish 
between  perception  and  notion.  They  fancy 
that  I  choose  to  see  this  or  that  thing.  But 
perception  is  not  whimsical,  but  fatal.  If  I  see 
a  trait,  my  children  will  see  it  after  me,  and  in 
course  of  time  all  mankind,  —  although  it  may 
chance  that  no  one  has  seen  it  before  me.  For 
my  perception  of  it  is  as  much  a  fact  as  the 
sun.1 

The  relations  of  the  soul  to  the  divine  spirit 
are  so  pure  that  it  is  profane  to  seek  to  inter- 
pose helps.  It  must  be  that  when  God  speak- 
eth  he  should  communicate,  not  one  thing,  but 


56  SELF-RELIANCE 

all  things;  should  fill  the  world  with  his  voice; 
should  scatter  forth  light,  nature,  time,  souls, 
from  the  centre  of  the  present  thought;  and 
new  date  and  new  create  the  whole.  Whenever 
a  mind  is  simple  and  receives  a  divine  wisdom, 
old  things  pass  away,  —  means,  teachers,  texts, 
temples  fall  ;  it  lives  now,  and  absorbs  past  and 
future  into  the  present  hour.  All  things  are 
made  sacred  by  relation  to  it,  —  one  as  much  as 
another.  All  things  are  dissolved  to  their  centre 
by  their  cause,  and  in  the  universal  miracle  petty 
and  particular  miracles  disappear.  If  therefore 
a  man  claims  to  know  and  speak  of  God  and 
carries  you  backward  to  the  phraseology  of  some 
old  mouldered  nation  in  another  country,  in 
another  world,  believe  him  not.  Is  the  acorn 
better  than  the  oak  which  is  its  fulness  and  com- 
pletion ?  Is  the  parent  better  than  the  child  into 
whom  he  has  cast  his  ripened  being  ?  Whence 
then  this  worship  of  the  past  ?  The  centuries 
are  conspirators  against  the  sanity  and  authority 
of  the  soul.  Time  and  space  are  but  physiolo- 
gical colors  which  the  eye  makes,  but  the  soul  is 
light :  where  it  is,  is  day ;  where  it  was,  is  night ; 
and  history  is  an  impertinence  and  an  injury  if 
it  be  any  thing  more  than  a  cheerful  apologue 
or  parable  of  my  being  and  becoming. 


SELF-RELIANCE  67 

Man  is  timid  and  apologetic ;  he  is  no  longer 
upright ;  he  dares  not  say  *  I  think,'  *  I  am/  but 
quotes  some  saint  or  sage.1  He  is  ashamed  be- 
fore the  blade  of  grass  or  the  blowing  rose. 
These  roses  under  my  window  make  no  refer- 
ence to  former  roses  or  to  better  ones ;  they  are 
for  what  they  are ;  they  exist  with  God  to-day. 
There  is  no  time  to  them.  There  is  simply  the 
rose ;  it  is  perfect  in  every  moment  of  its  exist- 
ence. Before  a  leaf-bud  has  burst,  its  whole  life 
acts ;  in  the  full-blown  flower  there  is  no  more ; 
in  the  leafless  root  there  is  no  less.  Its  nature 
is  satisfied  and  it  satisfies  nature  in  all  moments 
alike.  But  man  postpones  or  remembers ;  he 
does  not  live  in  the  present,  but  with  reverted 
eye  laments  the  past,  or,  heedless  of  the  riches 
that  surround  him,  stands  on  tiptoe  to  foresee 
the  future.  He  cannot  be  happy  and  strong 
until  he  too  lives  with  nature  in  the  present, 
above  time. 

This  should  be  plain  enough.  Yet  see  what 
strong  intellects  dare  not  yet  hear  God  himself 
unless  he  speak  the  phraseology  of  I  know  not 
what  David,  or  Jeremiah,  or  Paul.  We  shall  not 
always  set  so  great  a  price  on  a  few  texts,  on  a 
few  lives.  We  are  like  children  who  repeat  bv 
rote  the  sentences  of  grandames  and  tutors,  and. 


68  SELF-RELIANCE 

as  they  grow  older,  of  the  men  of  talents  and 
character  they  chance  to  see,  —  painfully  recol- 
lecting the  exact  words  they  spoke  ;  afterwards, 
when  they  come  into  the  point  of  view  which 
those  had  who  uttered  these  sayings,  they  un- 
derstand them  and  are  willing  to  let  the  words 
go ;  for  at  any  time  they  can  use  words  as  good 
when  occasion  comes.  If  we  live  truly,  we  shall 
see  truly.  It  is  as  easy  for  the  strong  man  to  be 
strong,  as  it  is  for  the  weak  to  be  weak.  When 
we  have  new  perception,  we  shall  gladly  disbur- 
den the  memory  of  its  hoarded  treasures  as  old 
rubbish.  When  a  man  lives  with  God,  his  voice 
shall  be  as  sweet  as  the  murmur  of  the  brook 
and  the  rustle  of  the  corn. 

And  now  at  last  the  highest  truth  on  this  sub- 
ject remains  unsaid  ;  probably  cannot  be  said  ; 
for  all  that  we  say  is  the  far-off  remembering  of 
the  intuition.  That  thought  by  what  I  can  now 
nearest  approach  to  say  it,  is  this.  When  good 
is  near  you,  when  you  have  life  in  yourself,  it 
is  not  by  any  known  or  accustomed  way ;  you 
shall  not  discern  the  footprints  of  any  other ; 
you  shall  not  see  the  face  of  man  ;  you  shall  not 
hear  any  name; — the  way,  the  thought,  the  good, 
shall  be  wholly  strange  and  new.  It  shall  ex- 
clude example  and  experience.  You  take  the 


SELF-RELIANCE  69 

way  from  man,  not  to  man.  All  persons  that 
ever  existed  are  its  forgotten  ministers.  Fear 
and  hope  are  alike  beneath  it.  There  is  some- 
what low  even  in  hope.  In  the  hour  of  vision 
there  is  nothing  that  can  be  called  gratitude,  nor 
properly  joy.  The  soul  raised  over  passion  be- 
holds identity  and  eternal  causation,  perceives 
the  self-existence  of  Truth  and  Right,  and  calms 
itself  with  knowing  that  all  things  go  well.  Vast 
spaces  of  nature,  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  the  South 
Sea  ;  long  intervals  of  time,  years,  centuries,  are 
of  no  account.  This  which  I  think  and  feel  un- 
derlay every  former  state  of  life  and  circum- 
stances, as  it  does  underlie  my  present,  and  what 
is  called  life  and  what  is  called  death. 

Life  only  avails,  not  the  having  lived.  Power 
ceases  in  the  instant  of  repose ;  it  resides  in  the 
moment  of  transition  from  a  past  to  a  new  state, 
in  the  shooting  of  the  gulf,  in  the  darting  to  an 
aim.  This  one  fact  the  world  hates ;  that  the 
soul  becomes ;  for  that  forever  degrades  the  past, 
turns  all  riches  to  poverty,  all  reputation  to  a 
shame,confounds  the  saint  with  the  rogue,shoves 
Jesus  and  Judas  equally  aside.  Why  then  do  we 
prate  of  self-reliance  ?  Inasmuch  as  the  soul  is 
present  there  will  be  power  not  confident  but 
agent."  To  talk  of  reliance  is  a  poor  external 


7o  SELF-RELIANCE 

*vay  of  speaking.  Speak  rather  of  that  which 
relies  because  it  works  and  is.  Who  has  more 
obedience  than  I  masters  me,  though  he  should 
not  raise  his  finger.  Round  him  I  must  revolve 
by  the  gravitation  of  spirits.  We  fancy  it  rhe- 
toric when  we  speak  of  eminent  virtue.  We  do 
not  yet  see  that  virtue  is  Height,  and  that  a  man 
or  a  company  of  men,  plastic  and  permeable  to 
principles,  by  the  law  of  nature  must  overpower 
and  ride  all  cities,  nations,  kings,  rich  men,  poets, 
who  are  not. 

This  is  the  ultimate  fact  which  we  so  quickly 
reach  on  this,  as  on  every  topic,  the  resolution 
of  all  into  the  ever-blessed  ONE.  Self-existence 
is  the  attribute  of  the  Supreme  Cause,  and  it 
constitutes  the  measure  of  good  by  the  degree  in 
which  it  enters  into  all  lower  forms.  All  things 
real  are  so  by  so  much  virtue  as  they  contain. 
Commerce,  husbandry,  hunting,  whaling,  wa^ 
eloquence,  personal  weight,  are  somewhat,  and 
engage  my  respect  as  examples  of  its  presence 
and  impure  action.  I  see  the  same  law  working 
in  nature  for  conservation  and  growth.  Power 
is,  in  nature,  the  essential  measure  of  right.  Na- 
ture suffers  nothing  to  remain  in  her  kingdoms 
which  cannot  help  itself.  The  genesis  and  matu- 
ration of  a  planet,  its  poise  and  orbit,  the  bended 


SELF-RELIANCE  71 

tree  recovering  itself  from  the  strong  wind,  the 
vital  resources  of  every  animal  and  vegetable,  are 
demonstrations  of  the  self-sufficing  and  therefore 
self-relying  soul. 

Thus  all  concentrates:  let  us  not  rove  ;  let  us 
sit  at  home  with  the  cause.1  Let  us  stun  and  as- 
tonish the  intruding  rabble  of  men  and  books 
and  institutions  by  a  simple  declaration  of  the 
divine  fact.  Bid  the  invaders  take  the  shoes  from 
off  their  feet,  for  God  is  here  within.  Let  our 
simplicity  judge  them,  and  our  docility  to  our 
own  law  demonstrate  the  poverty  of  nature  and 
fortune  beside  our  native  riches. 

But  now  we  are  a  mob.  Man  does  not  stand 
in  awe  of  man,  nor  is  his  genius  admonished  to 
stay  at  home,  to  put  itself  in  communication 
with  the  internal  ocean,  but  it  goes  abroad  to 
beg  a  cup  of  water  of  the  urns  of  other  men. 
We  must  go  alone.  I  like  the  silent  church  be- 
fore the  service  begins,  better  than  any  preach- 
ing. How  far  off,  how  cool,  how  chaste  the 
persons  look,  begirt  each  one  with  a  precinct  or 
sanctuary  !  So  let  us  always  sit.  Why  should 
we  assume  the  faults  of  our  friend,  or  wife,  or 
father,  or  child,  because  they  sit  around  our 
hearth,  or  are  said  to  have  the  same  blood  ?  All 
men  have  my  blood  and  I  all  men's.  Not  for 


72  SELF-RELIANCE 

that  will  I  adopt  their  petulance  or  folly,  even 
to  the  extent  of  being  ashamed  of  it.1  But  your 
isolation  must  not  be  mechanical,  but  spirit- 
ual, that  is,  must  be  elevation.  At  times  the 
whole  world  seems  to  be  in  conspiracy  to  im- 
portune you  with  emphatic  trifles.  Friend,  cli- 
ent, child,  sickness,  fear,  want,  charity,  all  knock 
at  once  at  thy  closet  door  and  say,  — '  Come 
out  unto  us.'  But  keep  thy  state  ;  come  not 
into  their  confusion.  The  power  men  possess 
to  annoy  me  I  give  them  by  a  weak  curiosity. 
No  man  can  come  near  me  but  through  my  act. 
"  What  we  love  that  we  have,  but  by  desire  we 
bereave  ourselves  of  the  love." 

If  we  cannot  at  once  rise  to  the  sanctities  of 
obedience  and  faith,  let  us  at  least  resist  our 
temptations ;  let  us  enter  into  the  state  of  war 
and  wake  Thor  and  Woden,  courage  and  con- 
stancy, in  our  Saxon  breasts.  This  is  to  be  done 
in  our  smooth  times  by  speaking  the  truth. 
Check  this  lying  hospitality  and  lying  affec- 
tion. Live  no  longer  to  the  expectation  of  these 
deceived  and  deceiving  people  with  whom  we 
converse.  Say  to  them,  '  O  father,  O  mother, 

0  wife,  O  brother,  O  friend,  I  have  lived  with 
you  after  appearances  hitherto.    Henceforward 

1  am  the  truth's.    Be  it  known  unto  you  that 


SELF-RELIANCE  73 

henceforward  I  obey  no  law  less  than  vhe  eter- 
nal law.  I  will  have  no  covenants  but  proximi- 
ties. I  shall  endeavor  to  nourish  my  parents, 
to  support  my  family,  to  be  the  chaste  husband 
of  one  wife,  —  but  these  relations  I  must  fill 
after  a  new  and  unprecedented  way.  I  appeal 
from  your  customs.  I  must  be  myself.  1  can- 
not break  myself  any  longer  for  you,  or  you. 
If  you  can  love  me  for  what  I  am,  we  shall  be 
the  happier.  If  you  cannot,  I  will  still  seek  to 
deserve  that  you  should.  I  will  not  hide  my 
tastes  or  aversions.  I  will  so  trust  that  what  is 
deep  is  holy,  that  I  will  do  strongly  before  the 
sun  and  moon  whatever  inly  rejoices  me  and 
the  heart  appoints.  If  you  are  noble,  I  will  love 
you  ;  if  you  are  not,  I  will  not  hurt  you  and 
myself  by  hypocritical  attentions.  If  you  are 
true,  but  not  in  the  same  truth  with  me,  cleave 
to  your  companions  ;  I  will  seek  my  own.  I 
do  this  not  selfishly  but  humbly  and  truly.  It 
is  alike  your  interest,  and  mine,  and  all  men's, 
however  long  we  have  dwelt  in  lies,  to  live  in 
truth.  Does  this  sound  harsh  to-day  ?  You 
will  soon  love  what  is  dictated  by  your  nature 
as  well  as  mine,  and  if  we  follow  the  truth  it 
will  bring  us  out  safe  at  last.'  —  But  so  may 
you  give  these  friends  pain.  Yes,  but  I  cannot 


74  SELF-RELIANCE 

sell  my  liberty  and  my  power,  to  save  their 
sensibility.  Besides,  all  persons  have  their  mo- 
ments of  reason,  when  they  look  out  into  the 
region  of  absolute  truth  ;  then  will  they  justify 
me  and  do  the  same  thing. 

The  populace  think  that  your  rejection  of 
popular  standards  is  a  rejection  of  all  standard, 
and  mere  antinomianism ;  and  the  bold  sensu- 
alist will  use  the  name  of  philosophy  to  gild 
his  crimes.  But  the  law  of  consciousness  abides. 
There  are  two  confessionals,  in  one  or  the  other 
of  which  we  must  be  shriven.  You  may  fulfil 
your  round  of  duties  by  clearing  yourself  in  the 
direct,  or  in  the  reflex  way.  Consider  whether 
you  have  satisfied  your  relations  to  father,  mo- 
ther, cousin,  neighbor,  town,  cat  and  dog  — 
whether  any  of  these  can  upbraid  you.  But  I 
may  also  neglect  this  reflex  standard  and  absolve 
me  to  myself.  I  have  my  own  stern  claims  and 
perfect  circle.  It  denies  the  name  of  duty  to 
many  offices  that  are  called  duties.  But  if  I  can 
discharge  its  debts  it  enables  me  to  dispense 
with  the  popular  code.  If  any  one  imagines 
that  this  law  is  lax,  let  him  keep  its  command- 
ment one  day.1 

And  truly  it  demands  something  godlike  in 
him  who  has  cast  off  the  common  motives  of 


SELF-RELIANCE  75 

humanity  and  has  ventured  to  trust  himself  for 
a  taskmaster.  High  be  his  heart,  faithful  his 
will,  clear  his  sight,  that  he  may  in  good  earnest 
be  doctrine,  society,  law,  to  himself,  that  a  simple 
purpose  may  be  to  him  as  strong  as  iron  neces- 
sity is  to  others ! 

If  any  man  consider  the  present  aspects  of 
what  is  called  by  distinction  society^  he  will  see 
the  need  of  these  ethics.  The  sinew  and  heart 
of  man  seem  to  be  drawn  out,  and  we  are  be- 
come timorous,  desponding  whimperers.  We 
are  afraid  of  truth,  afraid  of  fortune,  afraid  of 
death,  and  afraid  of  each  other.  Our  age  yields 
no  great  and  perfect  persons.  We  want  men  and 
women  who  shall  renovate  life  and  our  social 
state,  but  we  see  that  most  natures  are  insol- 
vent, cannot  satisfy  their  own  wants,  have  an 
ambition  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  practical 
force  and  do  lean  and  beg  day  and  night  con- 
tinually. Our  housekeeping  is  mendicant,  our 
arts,  our  occupations,  our  marriages,  our  religion 
we  have  not  chosen,  but  society  has  chosen  for 
us.  We  are  parlor  soldiers.  We  shun  the  rugged 
battle  of  fate,  where  strength  is  born. 

If  our  young  men  miscarry  in  their  first  en- 
terprises they  lose  all  heart.  If  the  young  mer- 
chant fails,  men  say  he  is  ruined.  If  the  finest 


76  SELF-RELIANCE 

genius  studies  at  one  of  our  colleges  and  is  not 
installed  in  an  office  within  one  year  afterwards 
in  the  cities  or  suburbs  of  Boston  or  New  York, 
it  seems  to  his  friends  and  to  himself  that  he  is 
right  in  being  disheartened  and  in  complaining 
the  rest  of  his  life.  A  sturdy  lad  from  New 
Hampshire  or  Vermont,  who  in  turn  tries  all 
the  professions,  who  teams  it ,  farms  //,  peddles, 
keeps  a  school,  preaches,  edits  a  newspaper, 
goes  to  Congress,  buys  a  township,  and  so  forth, 
in  successive  years,  and  always  like  a  cat  falls  on 
his  feet,  is  worth  a  hundred  of  these  city  dolls.1 
He  walks  abreast  with  his  days  and  feels  no 
shame  in  not  'studying  a  profession,'  for  he 
does  not  postpone  his  life,  but  lives  already. 
He  has  not  one  chance,  but  a  hundred  chances. 
Let  a  Stoic  open  the  resources  of  man  and  tell 
men  they  are  not  leaning  willows,  but  can  and 
must  detach  themselves ;  that  with  the  exercise 
of  self-trust,  new  powers  shall  appear ;  that  a 
man  is  the  word  made  flesh,  born  to  shed  heal- 
ing to  the  nations ;  that  he  should  be  ashamed 
of  our  compassion,  and  that  the  moment  he 
acts  from  himself,  tossing  the  laws,  the  books, 
idolatries  and  customs  out  of  the  window,  we 
pity  him  no  more  but  thank  and  revere  him; — • 
and  that  teacher  shall  restore  the  life  of  man 


SELF-RELIANCE  77 

to  splendor  and  make  his  name  dear  to  all 
history. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  a  greater  self-reliance 
must  work  a  revolution  in  all  the  offices  and 
relations  of  men  ;  in  their  religion ;  in  their 
education ;  in  their  pursuits ;  their  modes  of 
living ;  their  association  ;  in  their  property  ;  in 
their  speculative  views. 

i.  In  what  prayers  do  men  allow  themselves  ! 
That  which  they  call  a  holy  office  is  not  so 
much  as  brave  and  manly.  Prayer  looks  abroad 
and  asks  for  some  foreign  addition  to  come 
through  some  foreign  virtue,  and  loses  itself  in 
endless  mazes  of  natural  and  supernatural,  and 
mediatorial  and  miraculous.  Prayer  that  craves 
a  particular  commodity,  anything  less  than  all 
good,  is  vicious.  Prayer  is  the  contemplation  of 
the  facts  of  life  from  the  highest  point  of  view. 
It  is  the  soliloquy  of  a  beholding  and  jubilant 
soul.  It  is  the  spirit  of  God  pronouncing  his 
works  good.  But  prayer  as  a  means  to  effect  a 
private  end  is  meanness  and  theft.  It  supposes 
dualism  and  not  unity  in  nature  and  conscious- 
ness. As  soon  as  the  man  is  at  one  with  God, 
he  will  not  beg.  He  will  then  see  prayer  in  all 
action.  The  prayer  of  the  farmer  kneeling  in 
his  field  to  weed  it,  the  prayer  of  the  rower 


78  SELF-RELIANCE 

kneeling  with  the  stroke  of  his  oar,  are  true 
prayers  heard  throughout  nature,  though  for 
cheap  ends.1  Caratach,  in  Fletcher's  "Bon- 
duca,"  when  admonished  to  inquire  the  mind 
of  the  god  Audate,  replies,  — 

His  hidden  meaning  lies  in  our  endeavors  ; 
Our  valors  are  our  best  gods. 

Another  sort  of  false  prayers  are  our  regrets. 
Discontent  is  the  want  of  self-reliance :  it  is  in- 
firmity of  will.  Regret  calamities  if  you  can 
thereby  help  the  sufferer;  if  not,  attend  your 
own  work  and  already  the  evil  begins  to  be  re- 
paired. Our  sympathy  is  just  as  base.  We  come 
to  them  who  weep  foolishly  and  sit  down  and 
cry  for  company,  instead  of  imparting  to  them 
truth  and  health  in  rough  electric  shocks,  put- 
ting them  once  more  in  communication  with 
their  own  reason.  The  secret  of  fortune  is  joy 
in  our  hands.  Welcome  evermore  to  gods  and 
men  is  the  self-helping  man.  For  him  all  doors 
are  flung  wide ;  him  all  tongues  greet,  all  honors 
crown,  all  eyes  follow  with  desire.  Our  love 
goes  out  to  him  and  embraces  him  because  he 
did  not  need  it.  We  solicitously  and  apologeti- 
cally caress  and  celebrate  him  because  he  held 
on  his  way  and  scorned  our  disapprobation. 
The  gods  love  him  because  men  hated  him. 


SELF-RELIANCE  79 

"  To  the  persevering  mortal,"  said  Zoroaster, 
"  the  blessed  Immortals  are  swift." 

As  men's  prayers  are  a  disease  of  the  will,  so 
are  their  creeds  a  disease  of  the  intellect.  They 
say  with  those  foolish  Israelites,  '  Let  not  God 
speak  to  us,  lest  we  die.  Speak  thou,  speak  any 
man  with  us,  and  we  will  obey.'  Everywhere 
I  am  hindered  of  meeting  God  in  my  brother, 
because  he  has  shut  his  own  temple  doors  and 
recites  fables  merely  of  his  brother's,  or  his 
brother's  brother's  God.  Every  new  mind  is  a 
new  classification.  If  it  prove  a  mind  of  uncom- 
mon activity  and  power,  a  Locke,  a  Lavoisier, 
a  Hutton,  a  Bentham,  a  Fourier,  it  imposes  its 
classification  on  other  men,  and  lo  !  a  new  sys- 
tem. In  proportion  to  the  depth  of  the  thought, 
and  so  to  the  number  of  the  objects  it  touches 
and  brings  within  reach  of  the  pupil,  is  his 
complacency.  But  chiefly  is  this  apparent  in 
creeds  and  churches,  which  are  also  classifications 
of  some  powerful  mind  acting  on  the  elemen- 
tal thought  of  duty  and  man's  relation  to  the 
Highest.  Such  is  Calvinism,  Quakerism,  Swe- 
denborgism.  The  pupil  takes  the  same  delight 
in  subordinating  every  thing  to  the  new  termi- 
nology as  a  girl  who  has  just  learned  botany  in 
seeing  a  new  earth  and  new  seasons  thereby. 


8o  SELF-RELIANCE 

It  will  happen  for  a  time  that  the  pupil  will 
find  his  intellectual  power  has  grown  by  the 
study  of  his  master's  mind.  But  in  all  unbal- 
anced minds  the  classification  is  idolized,  passes 
for  the  end  and  not  for  a  speedily  exhaustible 
means,  so  that  the  walls  of  the  system  blend  to 
their  eye  in  the  remote  horizon  with  the  walls  of 
the  universe;  the  luminaries  of  heaven  seem  to 
them  hung  on  the  arch  their  master  built.  They 
cannot  imagine  how  you  aliens  have  any  right 
to  see, — how  you  can  see;  c  It  must  be  some- 
how that  you  stole  the  light  from  us.'  They 
do  not  yet  perceive  that  light,  unsystematic,  in- 
domitable, will  break  into  any  cabin,  even  into 
theirs.1  Let  them  chirp  awhile  and  call  it  their 
own.  If  they  are  honest  and  do  well,  presently 
their  neat  new  pinfold  will  be  too  strait  and  low, 
will  crack,  will  lean,  will  rot  and  vanish,  and 
the  immortal  light,  all  young  and  joyful,  million- 
orbed,  million-colored,  will  beam  over  the  uni- 
verse as  on  the  first  morning. 

2.  It  is  for  want  of  self-culture  that  the  su- 
perstition of  Travelling,  whose  idols  are  Italy, 
England,  Egypt,  retains  its  fascination  for  all 
educated  Americans.  They  who  made  Eng- 
land, Italy,  or  Greece  venerable  in  the  imagina- 
tion, did  so  by  sticking  fast  where  they  were, 


SELF-RELIANCE  81 

like  an  axis  of  the  earth.  In  manly  hours  we 
feel  that  duty  is  our  place.  The  soul  is  no  trav- 
eller; the  wise  man  stays  at  home,  and  when  his 
necessities,  his  duties,  on  any  occasion  call  him 
from  his  house,  or  into  foreign  lands,  he  is  at 
home  still  and  shall  make  men  sensible  by  the 
expression  of  his  countenance  that  he  goes,  the 
missionary  of  wisdom  and  virtue,  and  visits  cities 
and  men  like  a  sovereign  and  not  like  an  inter- 
loper or  a  valet. 

I  have  no  churlish  objection  to  the  circum- 
navigation of  the  globe  for  the  purposes  of  art, 
of  study,  and  "benevolence,  so  that  the  man  is 
first  domesticated,  or  does  not  go  abroad  with 
the  hope  of  finding  somewhat  greater  than  he 
knows.  He  who  travels  to  be  amused,  or  to  get 
somewhat  which  he  does  not  carry,  travels  away 
from  himself,  and  grows  old  even  in  youth 
among  old  things.  In  Thebes,  in  Palmyra,  his 
will  and  mind  have  become  old  and  dilapidated 
as  they.  He  carries  ruins  to  ruins. 

Travelling  is  a  fool's  paradise.  Our  first  jour- 
neys discover  to  us  the  indifference  of  places. 
At  home  I  dream  that  at  Naples,  at  Rome,  I 
can  be  intoxicated  with  beauty  and  lose  my  sad- 
ness. I  pack  my  trunk,  embrace  my  friends,  em- 
bark on  the  sea  and  at  last  wake  up  in  Naples, 


82  SELF-RELIANCE 

and  there  beside  me  is  the  stern  fact,  the  sad 
self,  unrelenting,  identical,  that  I  fled  from.  I 
seek  the  Vatican  and  the  palaces.  I  affect  to  be 
intoxicated  with  sights  and  suggestions,  but  I 
am  not  intoxicated.  My  giant  goes  with  me 
wherever  I  go.1 

3.  But  the  rage  of  travelling  is  a  symptom 
of  a  deeper  unsoundness  affecting  the  whole 
intellectual  action.  The  intellect  is  vagabond, 
and 'our  system  of  education  fosters  restlessness. 
Our  minds  travel  when  our  bodies  are  forced  to 
stay  at  home.  We  imitate ;  and  what  is  imita- 
tion but  the  travelling  of  the  mind?  Our  houses 
are  built  with  foreign  taste;  our  shelves  are  gar- 
nished with  foreign  ornaments ;  our  opinions, 
our  tastes,  our  faculties,  lean,  and  follow  the 
Past  and  the  Distant.  The  soul  created  the  arts 
wherever  they  have  flourished.  It  was  in  his 
own  mind  that  the  artist  sought  his  model.  It 
was  an  application  of  his  own  thought  to  the 
thing  to  be  done  and,  the  conditions  to  be  ob- 
served. And  why  need  we  copy  the  Doric  or  the 
Gothic  model  ?  Beauty,  convenience,  grandeur 
of  thought  and  quaint  expression  are  as  near  to 
us  as  to  any,  and  if  the  American  artist  will 
study  with  hope  and  love  the  precise  thing  to 
be  done  by  him,  considering  the  climate,  the  soil, 


SELF-RELIANCE  83 

the  length  of  the  day,  the  wants  of  the  people, 
the  habit  and  form  of  the  government,  he  will 
create  a  house  in  which  all  these  will  find  them- 
selves fitted,  and  taste  and  sentiment  will  be 
satisfied  also. 

Insist  on  yourself;  never  imitate.  Your  own 
gift  you  can  present  every  moment  with  the 
cumulative  force  of  a  whole  life's  cultivation ; 
but  of  the  adopted  talent  of  another  you  have 
only  an  extemporaneous  half  possession.  That 
which  each  can  do  best,  none  but  his  Maker  can 
teach  him.  No  man  yet  knows  what  it  is,  nor 
can,  till  that  person  has  exhibited  it.  Where  is 
the  master  who  could  have  taught  Shakspeare  ? 
Where  is  the  master  who  could  have  instructed 
Franklin,  or  Washington,  or  Bacon,  or  New- 
ton ?  Every  great  man  is  a  unique.  The  Scip- 
ionism  of  Scipio  is  precisely  that  part  he  could 
not  borrow.1  Shakspeare  will  never  be  made  by 
the  study  of  Shakspeare.  Do  that  which  is  as- 
signed you,  and  you  cannot  hope  too  much  or 
dare  too  much.  There  is  at  this  moment  for 
you  an  utterance  brave  and  grand  as  that  of  the 
colossal  chisel  of  Phidias,  or  trowel  of  the  Egyp- 
tians, or  the  pen  of  Moses  or  Dante,  but  differ- 
ent from  all  these.  Not  possibly  will  the  soul, 
all  rich,  all  eloquent,  with  thousand  -  cloven 


84  SELF-RELIANCE 

tongue,  deign  to  repeat  itself;  but  if  you  can 
hear  what  these  patriarchs  say,  surely  you  can 
reply  to  them  in  the  same  pitch  of  voice ;  for 
the  ear  and  the  tongue  are  two  organs  of  one 
nature.  Abide  in  the  simple  and  noble  regions 
of  thy  life,  obey  thy  heart,  and  thou  shalt  repro- 
duce the  Foreworld  again. 

4.  As  our  Religion,  our  Education,  our  Art 
look  abroad,  so  does  our  spirit  of  society.  All 
men  plume  themselves  on  the  improvement  of 
society,  and  no  man  improves. 

Society  never  advances.  It  recedes  as  fast  on 
one  side  as  it  gains  on  the  other.  It  undergoes 
continual  changes;  it  is  barbarous,  it  is  civilized, 
it  is  christianized,  it  is  rich,  it  is  scientific  ;  but 
this  change  is  not  amelioration.  For  every  thing 
that  is  given  something  is  taken.  Society  ac- 
quires new  arts  and  loses  old  instincts.  What  a 
contrast  between  the  well-clad,  reading,  writing, 
thinking  American,  with  a  watch,  a  pencil  and  a 
bill  of  exchange  in  his  pocket,  and  the  naked 
New  Zealander,  whose  property  is  a  club,  a 
spear,  a  mat  and  an  undivided  twentieth  of  a 
shed  to  sleep  under !  But  compare  the  health 
of  the  two  men  and  you  shall  see  that  the  white 
man  has  lost  his  aboriginal  strength.  If  the 
traveller  tell  us  truly,  strike  the  savage  with  a 


SELF-RELIANCE  85 

broad-axe  and  in  a  day  or  two  the  flesh  shall 
unite  and  heal  as  if  you  struck  the  blow  into 
soft  pitch,  and  the  same  blow  shall  send  the 
white  to  his  grave. 

The  civilized  man  has  built  a  coach,  but  has 
lost  the  use  of  his  feet.  He  is  supported  on 
crutches,  but  lacks  so  much  support  of  muscle. 
He  has  a  fine  Geneva  watch,  but  he  fails  of  the 
skill  to  tell  the  hour  by  the  sun.  A  Greenwich 
nautical  almanac  he  has,  and  so  being  sure  of 
the  information  when  he  wants  it,  the  man  in 
the  street  does  not  know  a  star  in  the  sky.  The 
solstice  he  does  not  observe ;  the  equinox  he 
knows  as  little ;  and  the  whole  bright  calendar 
of  the  year  is  without  a  dial  in  his  mind.  His 
note-books  impair  his  memory  ;  his  libraries 
overload  his  wit ;  the  insurance-office  increases 
the  number  of  accidents  ;  and  it  may  be  a  ques- 
tion whether  machinery  does  not  encumber; 
whether  we  have  not  lost  by  refinement  some 
energy,  by  a  Christianity,  entrenched  in  estab- 
lishments and  forms,  some  vigor  of  wild  virtue."1 
For  every  Stoic  was  a  Stoic ;  but  in  Christen- 
dom where  is  the  Christian  ? 

There  is  no  more  deviation  in  the  moral 
standard  than  in  the  standard  of  height  or  bulk. 
No  greater  men  are  now  than  ever  were.  A 


86  SELF-RELIANCE 

singular  equality  may  be  observed  between  the 
great  men  of  the  first  and  of  the  last  ages ;  nor 
can  all  the  science,  art,  religion,  and  philosophy 
of  the  nineteenth  century  avail  to  educate  greater 
men  than  Plutarch's  heroes,  three  or  four  and 
twenty  centuries  ago.  Not  in  time  is  the  race  pro- 
gressive. Phocion,  Socrates,  Anaxagoras,  Dioge- 
nes, are  great  men,  but  they  leave  no  class.  He 
who  is  really  of  their  class  will  not  be  called  by 
their  name,  but  will  be  his  own  man,  and  in  his 
turn  the  founder  of  a  sect.  The  arts  and  inven- 
tions of  each  period  are  only  its  costume  and  do 
not  invigorate  men.  The  harm  of  the  improved 
machinery  may  compensate  its  good.  Hudson 
and  Behring  accomplished  so  much  in  their 
fishing-boats  as  to  astonish  Parry  and  Frank- 
lin, whose  equipment  exhausted  the  resources 
of  science  and  art.  Galileo,  with  an  opera-glass, 
discovered  a  more  splendid  series  of  celestial 
phenomena  than  any  one  since.  Columbus 
found  the  New  World  in  an  undecked  boat. 
It  is  curious  to  see  the  periodical  disuse  and 
perishing  of  means  and  machinery  which  were 
introduced  with  loud  laudation  a  few  years  or 
centuries  before.  The  great  genius  returns  to 
essential  man.  We  reckoned  the  improvements 
of  the  art  of  war  among  the  triumphs  of  science, 


SELF-RELIANCE  87 

and  yet  Napoleon  conquered  Europe  by  the 
bivouac,  which  consisted  of  falling  back  on 
naked  valor  and  disencumbering  it  of  all  aids. 
The  Emperor  held  it  impossible  to  make  a 
perfect  army,  says  Las  Cases,  "  without  abolish- 
ing our  arms,  magazines,  commissaries  and  car- 
riages, until,  in  imitation  of  the  Roman  custom, 
the  soldier  should  receive  his  supply  of  corn, 
grind  it  in  his  hand-mill  and  bake  his  bread 
himself." 

Society  is  a  wave.  The  wave  moves  onward, 
but  the  water  of  which  it  is  composed  does  not. 
The  same  particle  does  not  rise  from  the  valley 
to  the  ridge.  Its  unity  is  only  phenomenal. 
The  persons  who  make  up  a  nation  to-day, 
next  year  die,  and  their  experience  dies  with 
them. 

And  so  the  reliance  on  Property,  including 
the  reliance  on  governments  which  protect  it, 
is  the  want  of  self-reliance.  Men  have  looked 
away  from  themselves  and  at  things  so  long 
that  they  have  come  to  esteem  the  religious, 
learned  and  civil  institutions  as  guards  of  pro- 
perty, and  they  deprecate  assaults  on  these,  be- 
cause they  feel  them  to  be  assaults  on  property. 
They  measure  their  esteem  of  each  other  by 
what  each  has,  and  not  by  what  each  is.  But  a 


88  SELF-RELIANCE 

cultivated  man  becomes  ashamed  of  his  pro* 
perty,  out  of  new  respect  for  his  nature.  Espe- 
cially he  hates  what  he  has  if  he  see  that  it  is 
accidental,  —  came  to  him  by  inheritance,  or 
gift,  or  crime  ;  then  he  feels  that  it  is  not  hav- 
ing; it  does  not  belong  to  him,  has  no  root  in 
him  and  merely  lies  there  because  no  revolution 
or  no  robber  takes  it  away.  But  that  which  a 
man  is,  does  always  by  necessity  acquire ;  and 
what  the  man  acquires,  is  living  property,  which 
does  not  wait  the  beck  of  rulers,  or  mobs,  or 
revolutions,  or  fire,  or  storm,  or  bankruptcies, 
but  perpetually  renews  itself  wherever  the  man 
breathes.  "Thy  lot  or  portion  of  life,"  said  the 
Caliph  Ali,  "  is  seeking  after  thee  ;  therefore 
be  at  rest  from  seeking  after  it."1  Our  depen- 
dence on  these  foreign  goods  leads  us  to  our 
slavish  respect  for  numbers.  The  political  par- 
ties meet  in  numerous  conventions ;  the  greater 
the  concourse  and  with  each  new  uproar  of  an- 
nouncement, The  delegation  from  Essex  !  The 
Democrats  from  New  Hampshire  !  The  Whigs 
of  Maine !  the  young  patriot  feels  himself 
stronger  than  before  by  a  new  thousand  of  eyes 
and  arms.  In  like  manner  the  reformers  sum- 
mon conventions  and  vote  and  resolve  in  mul- 
titude. Not  so,  O  friends !  will  the  God  deign 


SELF-RELIANCE  89 

to  enter  and  inhabit  you,  but  by  a  method  pre^ 
cisely  the  reverse.  It  is  only  as  a  man  puts  off 
all  foreign  support  and  stands  alone  that  I  see 
him  to  be  strong  and  to  prevail.  He  is  weaker 
by  every  recruit  to  his  banner.  Is  not  a  man 
better  than  a  town  ?  Ask  nothing  of  men, 
and,  in  the  endless  mutation,  thou  only  firm 
column  must  presently  appear  the  upholder  of 
all  that  surrounds  thee.  He  who  knows  that 
power  is  inborn,  that  he  is  weak  because  he  has 
looked  for  good  out  of  him  and  elsewhere,  and, 
so  perceiving,  throws  himself  unhesitatingly  on 
his  thought,  instantly  rights  himself,  stands  in 
the  erect  position,  commands  his  limbs,  works 
miracles ;  just  as  a  man  who  stands  on  his 
feet  is  stronger  than  a  man  who  stands  on 
his  head. 

So  use  all  that  is  called  Fortune.  Most  men 
gamble  with  her,  and  gain  all,  and  lose  all,  as 
her  wheel  rolls.  But  do  thou  leave  as  unlawful 
these  winnings,  and  deal  with  Cause  and  Effect, 
the  chancellors  of  God.  In  the  Will  work  and 
acquire,  and  thou  hast  chained  the  wheel  of 
Chance,  and  shall  sit  hereafter  out  of  fear  from 
her  rotations.  ^A.  political  victory,  a  rise  of 
rents,  the  recoveryof  your  sick  or  the  return 
oFyour  absentfriend7~or  some  other  favorable 


SELF-RELIANCE 


event  raises  your  spirits,  and  you  think  good 


Nothing  can  bring  you  peace  but  the  triumph 


ill 
COMPENSATION 

THE  wings  of  Time  are  black  and  white, 
Pied  with  morning  and  with  night. 
Mountain  tall  and  ocean  deep 
Trembling  balance  duly  keep. 
In  changing  moon,  in  tidal  wave, 
Glows  the  feud  of  Want  and  Have. 
Gauge  of  more  and  less  through  space 
Electric  star  and  pencil  plays. 
The  lonely  Earth  amid  the  balls 
That  hurry  through  the  eternal  halls, 
A  makeweight  flying  to  the  void, 
Supplemental  asteroid, 
Or  compensatory  spark, 
Shoots  across  the  neutral  Dark. 


Man 's  the  elm,  and  Wealth  the  vine, 
Stanch  and  strong  the  tendrils  twine  : 
Though  the  frail  ringlets  thee  deceive, 
None  from  its  stock  that  vine  can  reave0 
Fear  not,  then,  thou  child  infirm, 
There  's  no  god  dare  wrong  a  worm. 
Laurel  crowns  cleave  to  deserts 
And  power  to  him  who  power  exerts  ; 
Hast  not  thy  share  ?    On  winged  feet, 
Lo  !  it  rushes  thee  to  meet ; 
And  all  that  Nature  made  thy  own, 
Floating  in  air  or  pent  in  stone, 
Will  rive  the  hills  and  swim  the  sea 
And,  like  thy  shadow,  follow  thee. 


COMPENSATION 

IT^VER  since  I  was  a  boy  I  have  wished  to 
S-J  write  a  discourse  on  Compensation  ;  for  it 
seemed  to  me  when  very  young  that  on  this 
subject  life  was  ahead  of  theology  and  the  peo- 
ple knew  more  than  the  preachers  taught.  The 
documents  too  from  which  the  doctrine  is  to  be 
drawn,  charmed  my  fancy  by  their  endless  vari- 
ety, and  lay  always  before  me,  even  in  sleep;  for 
they  are  the  tools  in  our  hands,  the  bread  in  our 
basket,  the  transactions  of  the  street,  the  farm 
and  the  dwelling-house;  greetings,  relations, 
debts  and  credits,  the  influence  of  character,  the 
nature  and  endowment  of  all  men.  It  seemed 
to  me  also  that  in  it  might  be  shown  men  a  ray 
of  divinity,  the  present  action  of  the  soul  of  this 
world,  clean  from  all  vestige  of  tradition ;'  and 
so  the  heart  of  man  might  be  bathed  by  an  in- 
undation of  eternal  love,  conversing  with  that 
which  he  knows  was  always  and  always  must  be, 
because  it  really  is  now.  It  appeared  moreover 
that  if  this  doctrine  could  be  stated  in  terms 
with  any  resemblance  to  those  bright  intuitions 
in  which  this  truth  is  sometimes  revealed  to  us,  it 
would  be  a  star  in  many  dark  hours  and  crooked 


94  COMPENSATION 

passages  in  our  journey,  that  would  not  suffer 
us  to  lose  our  way. 

{I  was  lately  confirmed  in  these  desires  by 
hearing  a  sermon  at  church.  The  preacher,  a 
man  esteemed  for  his  orthodoxy,  unfolded  in  the 
ordinary  manner  the  doctrine  of  the  Last  Judg- 
ment. He  assumed  that  judgment  is  not  ex- 
ecuted in  this  world ;  that  the  wicked  are  suc- 
cessful ;  that  the  good  are  miserable  ; '  and  then 
urged  from  reason  and  from  Scripture  a  com- 
pensation to  be  made  to  both  parties  in  the  next 
life.  No  offence  appeared  to  be  taken  by  the 
congregation  at  this  doctrine.  As  far  as  I  could 
observe  when  the  meeting  broke  up  they  sepa- 
rated without  remark  on  the  sermon. 

Yet  what  was  the  import  of  this  teaching  ? 
What  did  the  preacher  mean  by  saying  that  the 
good  are  miserable  in  the  present  life  ?  Was  it 
that  houses  and  lands,  offices,  wine,  horses,  dress, 
luxury,  are  had  by  unprincipled  men,  whilst  the 
saints  are  poor  and  despised ;  and  that  a  com- 
pensation is  to  be  made  to  these  last  hereafter, 
by  giving  them  the  like  gratifications  another 
day, —  bank-stock  and  doubloons,  venison  and 
champagne?  This  must  be  the  compensation 
intended  ;  for  what  else  ?  Is  it  that  they  are  to 
have  leave  to  pray  and  praise  ?  to  love  and  serve 


COMPENSATION  95 

men  ?  Why,  that  they  can  do  now.  The  legiti- 
mate inference  the  disciple  would  draw  was,  — 
1  We  are  to  have  such  a  good  time  as  the  sinners 
have  now ; '  —  or,  to  push  it  to  its  extreme  im- 
port, — '  You  sin  now,  we  shall  sin  by  and  by ; 
we  would  sin  now,  if  we  could;  not  being  suc- 
cessful we  expect  our  revenge  to-morrow.' 

The  fallacy  lay  in  the  immense  concession 
that  the  bad  are  successful ;  that  justice  is  not 
done  now.  The  blindness  of  the  preacher  con- 
sisted in  deferring  to  the  base  estimate  of  the 
market  of  what  constitutes  a  manly  success,  in- 
stead of  confronting  and  convicting  the  world 
from  the  truth  ;  announcing  the  presence  of  the 
soul ;  the  omnipotence  of  the  will ;  and  so  estab- 
lishing the  standard  of  good  and  ill,  of  success 
and  falsehood. 

1  find  a  similar  base  tone  in  the  popular  reli- 
gious works  of  the  day  and  the  same  doctrines 
assumed  by  the  literary  men  when  occasionally 
they  treat  the  related  topics.  I  think  that  our 
popular  theology  has  gained  in  decorum,  and 
not  in  principle,  over  the  superstitions  it  has  dis- 
placed. But  men  are  better  than  their  theology. 
Their  daily  life  gives  it  the  lie.  Every  ingenu- 
ous and  aspiring  soul  leaves  the  doctrine  behind 
him  in  his  own  experience,  and  all  men  feel 


96  COMPENSATION 

sometimes  the  falsehood  which  they  cannot  de- 
monstrate. For  men  are  wiser  than  they  know.1 
That  which  they  hear  in  schools  and  pulpits 
without  afterthought,  if  said  in  conversation 
would  probably  be  questioned  in  silence.  If  a 
man  dogmatize  in  a  mixed  company  on  Pro- 
vidence and  the  divine  laws,  he  is  answered  by 
a  silence  which  conveys  well  enough  to  an  ob- 
server the  dissatisfaction  of  the  hearer,  but  his 
incapacity  to  make  his  own  statement. 

I  shall  attempt  in  this  and  the  following  chap- 
ter8 to  record  some  facts  that  indicate  the  path 
of  the  law  of  Compensation  ;  happy  beyond  my 
expectation  if  I  shall  truly  draw  the  smallest  arc 
of  this  circle.  ^ 

Polarity,  or  action  and  reaction,  we  meet  in 
every  part  of  nature  ;  in  darkness  and  light ;  in 
heat  and  cold ;  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  waters ; 
in  male  and  female  ;  in  the  inspiration  and  expi- 
ration of  plants  and  animals  ;  in  the  equation  of 
quantity  and  quality  in  the  fluids  of  the  animal 
body  ;  in  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the  heart ; 
in  the  undulations  of  fluids  and  of  sound ;  in 
the  centrifugal  and  centripetal  gravity;  in  elec- 
tricity, galvanism,  and  chemical  affinity.  Super- 
induce magnetism  at  one  end  of  a  needle,  the 


COMPENSATION  97 

opposite  magnetism  takes  place  at  the  other 
end.  If  the  south  attracts,  the  north  repels.  To 
empty  here,  you  must  condense  there.  .An  in- 
evitable dualism  bisects  nature,  so  that  each 
thing  is  a  half,  and  suggests  another  thing  to 
make  it  whole;  as,  spirit,  matter;  man,  woman; 
odd,  even  ;  subjective,  objective;  in,  out ;  upper, 
under;  motion,  rest;  yea,  nay.' 

Whilst  the  world  is  thus  dual,  so  is  every  one 
of  its  parts.  The  entire  system  of  things  gets 
represented  in  every  particle.  There  is  some- 
what that  resembles  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea, 
day  and  night,  man  and  woman,  in  a  single 
needle  of  the  pine,  in  a  kernel  of  corn,  in  each 
individual  of  every  animal  tribe.  The  reaction, 
so  grand  in  the  elements,  is  repeated  within 
these  small  boundaries.  For  example,  in  the 
animal  kingdom  the  physiologist  has  observed 
that  no  creatures  are  favorites,  but  a  certain 
compensation  balances  every  gift  and  every  de- 
fect. A  surplusage  given  to  one  part  is  paid  out 
of  a  reduction  from  another  part  of  the  same 
creature.  If  the  head  and  neck  are  enlarged, 
the  trunk  and  extremities  are  cut  short. 

The  theory  of  the  mechanic  forces  is  another 
example.  What  we  gain  in  power  is  lost  in 
time,  and  the  converse.  The  periodic  or  com- 


98  COMPENSATION 

pensating  errors  of  the  planets  is  another  in- 
stance. The  influences  of  climate  and  soil  in 
political  history  is  another.  The  cold  climate 
invigorates.  The  barren  soil  does  not  breed 
fevers,  crocodiles,  tigers  or  scorpions. 
L.The  same  dualism  underlies  the  nature /and 
condition  of  man.  •  Every  excess  causes  a  defect ; 
every  defect  an- excess.  Every  sweet"  hath  its 
sour ;  every  evil  its  good.  Every  faculty  which 
is  a  receiver  of  pleasure  has  an  equal  penalty  put 
on  its  abuse.  It  is  to  answer  for  its  moderation 
with  its  life.  For  every  grain  of  wit  there  is  a 
grain  of  folly.  For  every  thing  you  have  missed, 
you  have  gained  something  else ;  and  for  every 
thing  you  gain,  you  lose  something.  If  riches 
increase,  they  are  increased  that  use  them.  If 
the  gatherer  gathers  too  much,  Nature  takes  out 
of  the  man|what  she  puts  into  his  chest ;  swells 
the  estate,  but  kills  the  owner]  Nature  hates 
monopolies  and  exceptions.  1C  he  waves  of  the 
sea  do  not  more  speedily  seek  a  level  from  their 
loftiest  tossing  than  the  varieties  of  condition 
tend  to  equalize  themselves.  There  is  always 
some  levelling  circumstance  that  puts  down  the. 
overbearing,  the  strong,  the  rich,  the  fortunate, 
substantially  on  the  same  ground  with  all  others. 
Is  a  man  too  strong  and  fierce  for  society  and 


COMPENSATION  99 

by  temper  and  position  a  bad  citizen,  —  a  mo- 
rose ruffian,  with  a  dash  of  the  pirate  in  him  ?  — 
Nature  sends  him  a  /troop  of  pretty  sons  and 
daughters  who  are  getting  along  in  the  dame's 
classes  at  the  village  school,  and  love  and  feai 
for  them  smooths  his  grim  scowl  to  courtesy. 
Thus  she  contrives  to  intenerate  the  granite  and 
felspar,  takes  the  boar  out  and  puts  the  lamb  in 

and/lceeps  her  balance  true.1 
r 

L.The  farmer  imagines  power  and  place  are  fine 
things.  But  the  President  has  paid  dear  for  his 
White  House.  It  has  commonly  cost  him  all 
his  peace,  and  the  best  of  his  manly  attributes. 
To  preserve  for  a  short  time  so  conspicuous  an 
appearance  before  the  worldJhe  is  content  to  eat 
dust  before  the  real  masters  who  stand  erect 
behind  the  throne.  Or  do  men  desire  the  more 
substantial  and  permanent  grandeur  of  genius? 
Neither  has  this  an  immunity.  He  who  by  force 
of  will  or  of  thought  is  great  and  overlooks 
thousands,  has  the  charges  of  that  eminence. 
With  every  influx  of  light  comes  new  danger. 
Hasjie  light  ?  he  must  bear  witness  to  the  light, 
and  always  outrun  that  sympathy  which  gives 
him  such  keen  satisfaction,  by  his  fidelity  to  new 
revelations  of  the  incessant  soul.  He  must  hate 
father  and  mother,  wife  and/child.  Has  he  ail 


ioo  COMPENSATION 

that  the  world  loves  and  admires  and  covets?—- 
he  must  cast  behind  him  their  admiration  and 
afflict  them  by  faithfulness  to  his  truth  and  be- 
come a  byword  and  a  hissing. 

This  law^wl-TteTtheTawTof  cities  and  nations. 
It  is  in  vain  to  build  or  plot  or  combine  against 
it.  Things  refuse  to  be  mismanaged  long.  Res 
nolunt  diu  male  administrari.  Though  no  checks 
to  a  new  evil  appear,  the  checks  exist,  and  will 
appear.  If  the  government  is  cruel,  the  gov- 
ernor's life  is  not  safe.  If  you  tax  too  high,  the 
revenue  will  yield  [nothing.  If  you  make  the 
criminal  code  sanguinary,juries  will  not  convict. 
If  the  law  is  too  mild,  private  vengeance  comes 
in.  If  the  government  is  a  terrific  democracy> 
the  pressure  is  resisted  by  an  over-charge  of  en- 
ergy in  the  citizen,  and  life  glows  with  a  fiercer 
flame.  The  true  life  and  satisfactions  of  man 
seem  to  elude  the  utmost  rigors  or^  felicities  of 
condition  and  to  establish  themselves  with  great 
indifferency  under  all  varieties  of  circumstances. 
Under  all  governments  the  influence  of  charac- 
ter remains  the  same,  —  in  Turkey  and  in  New 
England  about  alike.  Under  the  primeval  des- 
pots [of  Egypt,  history  honestly  confesses  that 
man  must  have  been  as  free  as  culture  could 
ttiake  him. 


COMPENSATION  10* 

These  appearances  indicate  the  fact  that  the 
universe  is  represented  in  every  one  of  ks  par- 
ticles. Every  thing  in  nature  contains  all  the 
powers  of  nature.  Every  thing  is  made  of  one 
hidden  stuff;  as  the  naturalist  sees  one  type 
under  every  metamorphosis,  and  regards  a  horse 
as  a  running  man,  a  fish- as.  a  swimming  man,  a 
bird  as  a  flying  man,  a « tree  as  a  rooted  man. 
Each  new  form  repeats  not  only  the  main  char- 
acter of  the  type,  but  paro  for  part  all  the  details, 
all  the  aims,  furtherances,  hindrances,  energies 
and  whole  system  of  every  other.  Every  occu- 
pation, trade,  art,  transaction,  is  a  compend  of 
the  world  and  a  correlative  of  every  other.  Each 
one  is  an  entire  emblem  of  human  life ;  of  its 
good  and  ill,  its  trials,  its  enemies,  its  course  and 
its  end.  And  each  one  must  somehow  accom- 
modate the  whole  man  and  recite  all  his  destiny. 

The  world  globes  itself  in  a  drop  of  dew.x 
The  microscope  carrnot  find  the  animalcule  which 
is  less  perfect  for  being  little.  Eyes,  ears,  taste, 
smell,  motion,  resistance,  appetite,/and  organs 
of  reproduction  that  take  hold  on  eternity,  — 
all  find  room  to  consist  in  the  small  creature. 
So  do  we  put  our  life  into  every  act.  The  true 
doctrine  of  omnipresence  is  that  God  reappears 
with  all  his  parts  in  every  moss  and  cobweh 


102  COMPENSATION 

The  value  of  the  universe  contrives  to  throw 
itself  into  every  point.  If  the  good  is  there,  so 
is  the  evil ;  if  the  affinity,  so  the  repulsion  ;  if 
the  force,  so  the  limitation. 

Thus  is  the  universe  alive.  All  things  are 
moral.  That  soul  which  within  us  is,  a  senti- 
ment, outside  of  us  is  a  law.  /  We  feel  its  inspi- 
ration ;  but  there  in  history' we  can  see  its  fatal 
strength.  "  It  is  in  the  world,  and  the  world  was 
made  by  it."  Justice  is  not  postponed.  A  per- 
fect equity  adjusts  its  balance  in  all  parts  of  life. 
'Ael  yap  eu  TTLTTTOVO-LV  ol  AIDS  /cv/Sot,1 —  The 
dice  of  God  are  always  loaded.  The  world  looks 
like  a  multiplication-table,  or  a  mathematical 
equation,  which,  turn  it  how  you  will,  balances 
itself.  Take  what  figure  you  will,  its  exact 
value,  nor  more  nor  less,  still  returns  to  you. 
Every  secret  is  told,  every  crime  is  punished, 
every  virtue /rewarded,  every  wrong  redressed, 
in  silence  and  certainty.  What  we  call  retribu- 
tion is  the  universal  necessity  by  which  the 
whole  appears  wherever  a  part  appears.  If  you 
see  smoke,  there  must  be  fire.  If  you  see  a  hand 
or  a  limb,  you  know  that  the  trunk  to  which  it 
belongs  is  there  behind. 

Every  act  rewards  itself,  or  in  other  words 
integrates  itself,  in  a  twofold  manner;  first  in 


COMPENSATION  103 

the  thing,  or  in  real  nature  ;  and  secondly  in  the 
circumstance,  or  in  apparent  nature.  Men  call 
the  circumstance  the  retribution.  The  causal 
retribution  is  in  the  thing  and  Is  seen/by  the 
soul.  The  retribution  in  the  circumstance  is  seen 
by  the  understanding ;  it  is  inseparable  from  the 
thing,  but  is  often  spread  over  a  long  time  and 
so  does  not  become  distinct  until  after  many 
years.  The  specific  stripes  may  follow  late  after 
the  offence,  but  they  follow  because  they  accom- 
pany it.  Crime  and  punishment  grow  out  of  one 
stem.  Punishment  is  a  fruit  that  unsuspected 
ripens  within  the  flower  of  the  pleasure  which 
concealed  it.  Cause  and  effect,  means  and  ends, 
seed  and  fruit,  cannot  be  severed ;  for  the  effect 
already  blooms  in  the  cause,  the;end  preexists/in 
the  means,  the  fruit  in  the  seed.*" 
^Whilst  thus  the  world  will  be  whole  and  re- 
fuses to  be  disparted,  we  seek  to  act  partially, 
to  sunder,  to  appropriate;  for  example,  —  to 
gratify  the  senses  we  sever  the  pleasure  of  the 
senses  from  the  needs  of  the  character.  The  in- 
genuity of  man  has  always  been  dedicated  to  the 
solution  of  one  problem,  —  how  to  detach  the 
sensual  sweet,  the  sensual  strong,  the  sensual 
bright,  etc.,  from  the  moral  sweet,  the  moral 
deep,  the  moral  fair ;  that  is,  again,  to  contrive 


io4  COMPENSATION 

to  cut  clean  off  this  upper  surface  so  thin  as  to  / 
leave  it  bottomless  ;  to  get  a  one  end,  without  an 
other  end.  The  soul  says,  '  Eat ; '  the  body  would 
feast.  The  soul  says,  *  The  man  and  woman 
shall  be  one  flesh  and  one  soul ; '  the  body  would 
join  the  flesh  only.  The  soul  says,  *  Have  do- 
minion over  all  things  to  the  ends  of  virtue;' 
the  body  would  have  the  power  over  things  to 
its  own  ends. 

The  soul  strives  amain  to  live  and  work 
through  all  things.  It  would  be  the  only  fact. 
All  things  shall  be  added  unto  it, —  power,  plea- 
sure, knowledge,  beauty.  The  particular  man 
aims  to  be/s'omebody ;  to  set  up  for  himself;  to 
truck  and  higgle  for  a  private  good;  and,  in 
particulars,  to  ride  that  he  may  ride ;  to  dress 
that  he  may  be  dressed  ;  to  eat  that  he  may  eat ; 
and  to  govern,  that  he  may  be  seen.  Men  seek 
to  be  great ;  they  would  have  offices,  wealth, 
power,  and  fame.  They  think  that  to  be  great 
is  to  possess  one  side  of  nature,  —  the  sweet, 
without  the  other  side,  the  bitter. 

This  dividing  and  detaching  is  steadily  coun- 
teracted. Up  to  this  day  it  must  be  owned  no 
projector  has  had  the  smallest  success./  The 
parted  water  reunites  behind  our  hand.  Plea- 
sure is  taken  out  of  pleasant  things,  profit  out 


COMPENSATION  105 

of  profitable  things,  power  out  of  strong  things, 
as  soon  as  we  seek  to  separate  them  from  the 
whole.  We  can  no  more  halve  things  and  get 
the  sensual  good,  by  itself,  than  we  can  get  an 
inside  that  shall  have  no  outside,  or  a  light 
without  a  shadow.  "  Drive  out  Nature  with  a 
fork,  she  comes  running  back."  ' 

Life  invests  itself  with  inevitable  conditions, 
which  the  unwise  seek  to  dodge,  which  one  and 
another  brags  that  he  does  not  know,  that/they 
do  not  touch  him ;  —  but  the  brag  is  on  his  lips, 
the  conditions  are  in  his  soul.  If  he  escapes 
them  in  one  part  they  attack  him  in  another 
more  vital  part.  If  he  has  escaped  them  in 
form  and  in  the  appearance,  it  is  because  he  has 
resisted  his  life  and  fled  from  himself,  and  the 
retribution  is  so  much  death.  So  signal  is  the 
failure  of  all  attempts  to  make  this  separation 
of  the  good  from  the  tax,  that  the  experiment 
would  not  be  tried,  —  since  to  try  it  is  to  be 
mad,  —  but  for  the) circumstance  that  when  the 
disease  began  in  the  will,  of  rebellion  and  sepa- 
ration, the  intellect  is  at  once  infected,  so  that 
the  man  ceases  to  see  God  whole  in  each  object, 
but  is  able  to  see  the  sensual  allurement  of  an 
object  and  not  see  the  sensual  hurt ;  he  sees  the 
mermaid's  head  but  not  the  dragon's  tail,  and 


io6  COMPENSATION 

thinks  he  can  cut  off  that  which  he  would  hare 
from  that  which  he  would  not  have.  "  How  se- 
cret art  thou  who  dwellest  in  the  highest  heavens 
in  silence,  O  thou  only  great  God,  sprinkling 
with  an  unwearied  providence  Certain  penal  blind- 
nesses upon  such  as  have  unbridled  desires!"1 
The  human  soul  is  true  to  these  facts  in  the 
painting  of  fable,  of  history,  of  law,  of  proverbs, 
of  conversation.  It  finds  a  tongue  in  literature 
unawares.  Thus  the  Greeks  called  Jupiter,  Su- 
preme Mind ;  but  having  traditionally  ascribed 
to  him  many  base  actions,  they  involuntarily 
made  amends  to  reason  by  tying  up  the  hands 
of  so  bad  a  god.  He  is  made  as  helpless  as  a 
king  of  England.  Prometheus  knows  one  secret 
which  Jove  must  bargain  for ;  Minerva,  another. 
He  cannot  get  his  own  thunders ;  Minerva 
keeps  the  key 'of  them:  — 

"  Of  all  the  gods,  I  only  know  the  keys 

That  ope  the  solid  doors  within  whose  vaults 
His  thunders  sleep."  a 

A  plain  confession  of  the  in-working  of  the  All 
and  of  its  moral  aim.  The  Indian  mythology 
ends  in  the  same  ethics ;  and  it  would  seem  im- 
possible for  any  fable  to  be  invented  and  get 
any  currency  which  was  not  moral.  Aurora  for- 
got to  ask  youth  for  her  lover,  and  though  Ti- 


COMPENSATION  107 

thonus  is  immortal,  he  is  old.  Achilles  is  not 
quite  invulnerable;  the  sacred  waters  did  not 
wash  the  heel  by  which  Thetis  held  him.  Sieg- 
fried, in  the(Nibelungen,  is  not  quite  immortal, 
for  a  leaf  fell  on  his  back  whilst  he  was  bathing 
in  the  dragon's  blood,  and  that  spot  which  it 
covered  is  mortal.  And  so  it  must  be.  There  is 
a  crack  in  every  thing  God  has  made.  It  would 
seem  there  is  always  this  vindictive  circumstance 
stealing  in  at  unawares  even  into  the  wild  poesy 
in  which  the  human  fancy  attempted  to  make 
bold  holiday  and  to  shake  itself  free  of  the  old 
laws,  —  this  back-stroke,  this  kick  of  the  gun, 
certifying  that  the  law  is  fatal ;  that  in  nature 
nothing  can^be  given,  all  things  are  sold. 

This  is  that  ancient  doctrine  of  Nemesis,  who 
keeps  watch  in  the  universe  and  lets  no  offence 
go  unchastised.  The  Furies,  they  said,  are  at- 
tendants on  justice,  and  if  the  sun  in  heaven 
should  transgress  his  path  they  would  punish 
him.  The  poets  related  that  stone  walls  and  iron 
swords  and  leathern  thongs  had  an  occult  sym- 
pathy with  the  wrongs  of  their  owners  ;  that  the 
belt  which  Ajax  gave  Hector  dragged  the  Tro- 
jan hero  over  the  field  at  the  wheels  of  the  car 
of  Achilles,  and  the  sword  which /Hector  gave 
Ajax  was  that  on  whose  point  Ajax  fell.  They 


108  COMPENSATION 

recorded  that  when  the  Thasians  erected  a 
statue  to  Theagenes,  a  victor  in  the  games,  one 
of  his  rivals  went  to  it  by  night  and  endeavored 
to  throw  it  down  by  repeated  blows,  until  at  last 
he  moved  it  from  its  pedestal  and  was  crushed 
to  death  beneath  its  fall. 

This  voice  of  fable  has  in  it  somewhat  divine. 
It  came  from  thought  above  the  will  of  the 
writer.  That  is  the  best  part  of  each  writer  which 
has  nothing  private  in  it ;  that  which  he  does 
not  know  ;'that  which  flowed  out  of  his  consti- 
tution and  not  from  his  too  active  invention ; 
that  which  in  the  study  of  a  single  artist  you 
might  not  easily  find,  but  in  the  study  of  many 
you  would  abstract  as  the  spirit  of  them  all. 
Phidias  it  is  not,  but  the  work  of  man  in  that 
early  Hellenic  world  that  I  would  know.  The 
name  and  circumstance  of  Phidias,  however  con- 
venient for  history,  embarrass  when  we  come  to 
the  highest  criticism.  We  are  to  see  that  which 
man  was  tending  to  do  in  a  given  period,  and  was 
hindered,  or,  if  you/^vill,  modified  in  doing,  by 
the  interfering  volitions  of  Phidias,  of  Dante, 
of  Shakspeare,  the  organ  whereby  man  at  the 
moment  wrought.1 

Still  more  striking  is  the  expression  of  this 
fact  in  the  proverbs  of  all  nations,  which  are  al- 


COMPENSATION  109 

ways  the  literature  of  reason,  or  the  statements 
of  an  absolute  truth  without  qualification.  Pro- 
verbs, like  the  sacred  books  of  each  nation,  are 
the  sanctuary  of  the  intuitions.  That  which  the 
droning  world,  chained  to  appearances,  will  not 
allow  the  realist  to  say  in  his  own  words,  it  will 
suffer  him  to  say  in  proverbs  without  contradic- 
tion. And  this  law  of  laws,^vhich  the  pulpit,  the 
senate  and  the  college  deny,  is  hourly  preached 
in  all  markets  and  workshops  by  flights  of  pro- 
verbs, whose  teaching  is  as  true  and  as  omnipre- 
sent as  that  of  birds  and  flies. 

All  things  are  double,  one  against  another. — 
Tit  for  tat ;  an  eye  for  an  eye ;  a  tooth  for  a 
tooth;  blood  for  blood;  measure  for  measure; 
love  for  love. —  Give,  and  it  shall  be  given 
you.  —  He  that  watereth  shall  be  watered  him- 
self.— What  will  you  have  ?  quoth  God ;  pay  for 
it  and  take  it. — Nothing  venture,  nothing  have. 
—  Thou  shalt  be  paid  exactly  foiywhat  thou  hast 
done,  no  more,  no  less.  —  Who  doth  not  work 
shall  not  eat.  —  Harm  watch,  harm  catch. — 
Curses  always  recoil  on  the  head  of  him  who 
imprecates  them.  —  If  you  put  a  chain  around 
the  neck  of  a  slave,  the  other  end  fastens  itself 
around  your  own.  —  Bad  counsel  confounds  the 
adviser.  —  The  Devil  is  an  ass. 


no  COMPENSATION 

It  is  thus  written,  because  it  is  thus  in  life» 
Our  action  is  overmastered  and  characterized 
above  our  will  by  the  law  of  nature.  We  aim  at 
a  petty  end  quite  aside  from  the  public  good 
but  our  act  arranges  itself/fey  irresistible  mag 
netism  in  a  line  with  the  poles  of  the  world. 

A  man  cannot  speak  but  he  judges  himself 
With  his  will  or  against  his  will  he  draws  his 
portrait  to  the  eye  of  his  companions  by  every 
word.  Every  opinion  reacts  on  him  who  ut- 
ters it.  It  is  a  thread-ball  thrown  at  a  mark,  but 
the  other  end  remains  in  the  thrower's  bag.  Or 
rather  it  is  a  harpoon  hurled  at  the  whale,  un- 
winding, as  it  flies,  a  coil  of  cord  in  the  boat, 
and,  if  the  harpoon  is  not  good,  or  not  well 
thrown,  it  wilj/go  nigh  to  cut  the  steersman  in 
twain  or  to  sink  the  boat.1 

You  cannot  do  wrong  without  suffering  wrong. 
"  No  man  had  ever  a  point  of  pride  that  was  not 
injurious  to  him,"  said  Burke.  The  exclusive 
in  fashionable  life  does  not  see  that  he  excludes 
himself  from  enjoyment,  in  the  attempt  to  ap- 
propriate it.  The  exclusionist  in  religion  doe. 
not  see  that  he  shuts  the  door  of  heaven  on 
himself,  in  striving  to  shut  out  others.  Treat 
men  as  pawns  and  ninepins  and  you  shall  suf- 
fer as  well  as  they.  If  you  leave  out  their  hearty 


COMPENSATION  in' 

you  'shall  lose  your  own.  The  senses  would 
make  things  of  all  persons ;  of  women,  of  chil- 
dren, of  the  poor.  The  vulgar  proverb,  "  I  will 
get  it  from  his  purse  or  get  it  from  his  skin,"  is 
sound  philosophy. 

_  All  infractions  of  love  and  equity  in  our  social 
relations  are  speedily  punished.  They  are  pun- 
ished by  fear.  Whilst  I  stand  in  simple  relations 
to  my  fellow-man,  I  have  no  displeasure  in  meet- 
ing him.  We  meet  as  water  meets  water,  or  as 
two  currents  of  air  mix,  with  perfect  diffusion 
and  interpenej;ration  of  nature.  J3ut  as  soon  as 
there  is  anyraeparture  from  simplicity  and  at- 
tempt at  halfness,  or  good  for  me  that  is  not 
good  for  him,  my  neighbor  feels  the  wrong ;  he 
shrinks  from  me  as  far  as  I  have  shrunk  from 
him  ;  his  eyes  no  longer  seek  mine  ;  there  is  war 
between  us  ;  there  is  hate  in  him  and  fear  in  me. 
All  the  old  abuses  in  society,  universal  and 
particular,  all  unjust  accumulations  of  property 
and  power,  are  avenged  in  the  same  manner, 
Fear  is  an  instructor  of  great  sagacity  and  the 
herald  of  all  revolutions.  One  thing  he  teachef 
that  there  is  rottenness  where  he  appears./Ht 
is  a  carrion  crow,  and  though  you  see  not  well 
what  he  hovers  for,  there  is  death  somewhere. 
Our  property  is  timid,  our  laws  are  timid,  our 


in  COMPENSATION 

cultivated  classes  are  timid.  Fear  for  ages  has 
boded  and  mowed  and  gibbered  over  govern- 
ment and  property.  That  obscene  bird  is  not 
there  for  nothing.  He  indicates  great  wrongs 
which  must  be  revised. 

Of  the  like  nature  is  that  expectation  of  change 
which  instantly  follows  the  suspension  of  our 
voluntary  activity.  The  terror  of  cloudless  noon, 
the  emerald  of  Polycrates,1  the  awe  of  prosperity, 
the  instinct  which  leads  every  generous  soul  to/ 
impose  on  itself  tasks  of  a  noble  asceticism  and 
vicarious  virtue,  are  the  tremblings  of  the  balance 
of  justice  through  the  heart  and  mind  of  man. 

Experienced  men  of  the  world  know  very  well 
that  it  is  best  to  pay  Scotland  lot  as  they  go 
along,  and  that  a  man  often  pays  dear  for  a  small 
frugality.  ( The  borrower  runs  in  his  own  debO 
Has  a  man  gained  any  thing  who  has  received 
a  hundred  favors  and  rendered  none  ?  Has  he 
gained  by  borrowing,  through  indolence  or  cun- 
ning, his  neighbor's  wares,  or  horses,  or  money? 
There  arises  on  the/tieed  the  instant  acknow- 
ledgment of  benefit  on  the  one  part  and  of  debt 
on  the  other ;  that  is,  of  superiority  and  inferi- 
ority. The  transaction  remains  in  the  memory 
of  himself  and  his  neighbor ;  and  every  new 
transaction  alters  according  to  its  nature  then 


COMPENSATION  113 

relation  to  each  other.  He  may  soon  come  to 
see  that  he  had  better  have  broken  his  own  bones 
than  to  have  ridden  in  his  neighbor's  coach,  and 
that  "  the  highest  price  he  can  pay  for  a  thing  is 
to  ask  for  it."  ' 

A  wise  man  will  extend  this  lesson  to  all  parts 
of  life,  and  know/that  it  is  the  part  of  prudence 
to  face  every  claimant  and  pay  every  just' de- 
mand on  your  time,  your  talents,  or  your  heart. 
Always  pay  ;  for  first  or  last  you  must  pay  your 
entire  debt.  Persons  and  events  may  stand  for 
a  time  between  you  and  justice,  but  it  is  only  a 
postponement.  You  must  pay  at  last  your  own 
debt.  If  you  are  wise  you  will  dread  a  prosper- 
ity which  only  loads  you  with  more.  Benefit  is 
the  end  of  nature.  But  for  every  benefit  which 
you  receive,  a  tax  is  levied.  He  is  great  who 
confers  the/most  benefits.  He  is  base,  —  and 
that  is  the  one  base  thing  in  the  universe,  —  to 
receive  favors  and  render  none.  In  the  order  of 
nature  we  cannot  render  benefits  to  those  from 
whom  we  receive  them,  or  only  seldom.  But 
the  benefit  we  receive  must  be  rendered  again, 
line  for  line,  deed  for  deed,  cent  for  cent,  to 
somebody.  Beware  of  too  much  good  staying  in 
your  hand.  It  will  fast  corrupt  and  worm  worms. 
Pay  it  away  quickly  in  some  sort. 


ii4  COMPENSATION 

Labor  is  watched  over  by  the  same  pitiless 
laws.  Cheapest,  say  the  prudent,  is  the  dearest 
labor./  What  we  buy  in  a  broom,  a  mat,  a  wagon, 
a  knife,  is  some  application  of  good  sense  to  a 
common  want.  It  is  best  to  pay  in  your  land 
a  skilful  gardener,  or  to  buy  good  sense  applied 
to  gardening ;  in  your  sailor,  good  sense  applied 
to  navigation;  in  the  house,  good  sense  ap- 
plied to  cooking,  sewing,  serving;  in  your  agent, 
good  sense  applied  to  accounts  and  affairs.  So 
do  you  multiply  your  presence,  or  spread  your- 
self throughout  your  estate.  But  because  of  the 
dual  constitution  of  things,  in  labor  as  in  life 
there  can  be  no  cheating.  The/thief  steals  from 
himself.  The  swindler  swindles  himself.  For 
the  real  price  of  labor  is  knowledge  and  vir- 
tue, whereof  wealth  and  credit  are  signs.  These 
signs,  like  paper  money,  may  be  counterfeited 
or  stolen,  but  that  which  they  represent,  namely, 
knowledge  and  virtue,  cannot  be  counterfeited 
or  stolen.  These  ends  of  labor  cannot  be  an- 
swered but  by  real  exertions  of  the  mind,  and  in 
obedience  to  pure  motives.  The  cheat,  the  de- 
faulter, the  gambler,  cannot  extort  the  know- 
ledge of  material  and  moral  nature  which  his 
honest  care  and  pains  yield  to  the  operative. 
The  law  of  nature  is,  Do  thefthing,  and  you 


COMPENSATION  115 

shall  have  the  power ;  but  they  who  do  not  the 
thing  have  not  the  power. 

Human  labor,  through  all  its  forms,  from 
the  sharpening  of  a  stake  to  the  construction 
of  a  city  or  an  epic,  is  one  immense  illustration 
of  the  perfect  compensation  of  the  universe. 
The  absolute  balance  of  Give  and  Take,  the 
doctrine  that  every  thing  has  its  price,  —  and 
if  that  price  is  not  paid,  not  that  thing  but 
something  else  is  obtained,  and  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  get  anything  without  its  price, —  is 
not  less  sublime  in  the  columns  of  a/leger  than 
in  the  budgets  of  states,  in  the  laws  of  light  and 
darkness,  in  all  the  action  and  reaction  of  na- 
ture. ;  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  high  laws  which 
each  man  sees  implicated  in  those  processes  with 
which  he  is  conversant,  the  stern  ethics  which 
sparkle  on  his  chisel-edge,  which  are  measured 
out  by  his  plumb  and  foot-rule,  which  stand  as 
manifest  in  the  footing  of  the  shop-bill  as  in  the 
history  of  a  state,  —  do  recommend  to  him  his 
trade,  and  though  seldom  named,  exalt  his  busi- 
ness to  his  imagination.1 

The  league  between  virtue  ano/nature  engages 
all  things  to  assume  a  hostile  front  to  vice.  The 
beautiful  laws  and  substances  of  the  world  per- 
secute and  whip  the  traitor.  He  finds  that 


Ii6  COMPENSATION 

things  are  arranged  for  truth  and  benefit,  but 
there  is  no  den  in  the  wide  world  to  hide  a 
rogue.  Commit  a  crime,  and  the  earth  is  made 
of  glass.  Commit  a  crime,  and  it  seems  as  if 
a  coat  of  snow  fell  on  the  ground,  such  as  re- 
veals in  the  woods  the  track  of  every  partridge 
and  fox  and  squirrel  and  mole.  You  cannot  re- 
call the  spoken  word,  you  cannot  wipe  ou^  the 
foot-track,  you  cannot  draw  up  the  ladder,  so 
as  to  leave  no  inlet  or  clew.  Some  damning 
circumstance  always  transpires.  The  laws  and 
substances  of  nature,  —  water,  snow,  wind,  grav- 
itation, —  become  penalties  to  the  thief. 

On  the  other  hand  the  law  holds  with  equal 
sureness  for  all  right  action.  Love,  and  you 
shall  be  loved,  ^iovis 


as  much  as  the  two  sides  of  an  algebraic  equa- 
tion. The  good  man  has  absolute  good,  which 
like  fire  turns  every  thing  to  its  own  nature,  so 
that  you  cannot  do  him  any  harm  ;  but  as  the 
royal'  armies  sent  against  Napoleon,  when  he 
approached  cast  down  their  colors  and  from 
enemies  became  friends,  so  disasters  of  all  kinds, 
as  sickness,  offence,  poverty,  prove  benefac- 
tors :  — 

"  Winds  blow  and  waters  roll 
Strength  to  the  brave  and  power  and  deity, 
Yet  in  themselves  are  nothing."  * 


COMPENSATION  117 

The  good  are  befriended  even  by  weakness 
and  defect.  As  no  man  had  ever  a  point  of 
pride  that  was  not  injurious  to  him,  so  no  man 
had  ever  a  defect  that  was  not  somewhere  made 
useful  to  him.  The  stag  in  the  fable  admired 
his  horns  and  blamed  his  feet,  but  when  the 
hunter/came,  his  feet  saved  him,  and  afterwards, 
caught  in  the  thicket,  his  horns  destroyed  him. 
Every  man  in  his  lifetime  needs  to  thank  his 
faults.1  As  no  man  thoroughly  understands  a 
truth  until  he  has  contended  against  it,  so  no 
man  has  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  hin- 
drances or  talents  of  men  until  he  has  suffered 
from  the  one  and  seen  the  triumph  of  the  other 
over  his  own  want  of  the  same.  Has  he  a  de- 
fect of  temper  that  unfits  him  to  live  in  society  ? 
Thereby  he  is  driven  to  entertain  himself  alone 
and  acquire  habits  of  self-help  ;/and  thus,  like 
the  wounded  oyster,  he  mends  his  shell  with 
pearl. 

Our  strength  grows  out  of  our  weakness. 
The  indignation  which  arms  itself  with  secret 
forces  does  not  awaken  until  we  are  pricked  and 
stung  and  sorely  assailed.  A  great  man  is  always 
willing  to  be  little.  Whilst  he  sits  on  the  cush- 
ion of  advantages,  he  goes  to  sleep.  When  he 
is  pushed,  tormented,  defeated,  he  has  a  chance 


ri8  COMPENSATION 

to  learn  something;  he  has  been  put  on  his 
wits,  on  his  manhood ;  he  has  gained  facts ; 
learns  his  ignorance  ;  is  cured  of  the  insanity 
of  conceit;  has  got  moderation/and  real  skill. 
The  wise  man  throws  himself 'on  the  side  of 
his  assailants.  It  is  more  his  interest  than  it 
is  theirs  to  find  his  weak  point.  The  wound 
cicatrizes  and  falls  off  from  him  like  a  dead 
skin,  and  when  they  would  triumph,  lo  !  he  has 
passed  on  invulnerable.  Blame  is  safer  than 
praise.  I  hate  to  be  defended  in  a  newspaper.1 
As  long  as  all  that  is  said  is  said  against  me,  I 
feel  a  certain  assurance  of  success.  But  as  soon 
as  honeyed  words  of  praise  are  spoken  for  me 
I  feel  as  one  that  lies  /unprotected  before  his 
enemies.  In  general,  every  evil  to  which  we  do 
not  succumb  is  a  benefactor.  As  the  Sandwich 
Islander  believes  that  the  strength  and  valor  of 
the  enemy  he  kills  passes  into  himself,  so  we 
gain  the  strength  of  the  temptation  we  resist. 

The  same  guards  which  protect  us  from  dis- 
aster,  defect  and  enmity,  defend  us,  if  we  willj 
from  selfishness  and  fraud.  Bolts  and  bars  arc 
not  the  best  of  our  institutions,  nor  is  shrewd- 
ness in  trade  a  mark  of  wisdom.  Men  suffer  al! 
their  life  long  under  the  foolish  superstition 
that  they  can  be  cheated.  But)  it  is  as  impossi- 


COMPENSATION  119 

ble  for  a  man  to  be  cheated  by  any  one  but 
himself,  as  for  a  thing  to  be  and  not  to  be  at 
the  same  time.  There  is  a  third  silent  party  to 
all  our  bargains.  The  nature  and  soul  of  thingf 
takes  on  itself  the  guaranty  of  the  fulfilment  oi 
every  contract,  so  that  honest  service  cannot 
come  to  loss.  If  you  serve  an  ungrateful  mas- 
ter, serve  him  the  more.  Put  God  in  your  debt.1 
Every  stroke  shall  be  repaid.  The  longer  the 
payment  is  withholden,  the  better  for  you  ;  for 
compound  interest  on  compound  interest  is  the 
rate  and  usage  of  this  exchequer. 

The  history  of  persecution  is  a  history  of  en- 
deavors to  cheat  nature,  to  make  water  run  up 
hill,  to  twist  a  rope  of  sand.  It  makes  no  dif- 
ference whether  the  actors  be  many  or  one,  a 
tyrant  or  a  mob.  A  mob  is  a  society  of  bodies 
voluntarily  bereaving  themselves  of  reason  and 
traversing  its  work.  The  mob  is  man  volunta- 
rily descending  to  the  nature  of  the  beast.  Its 
fit  hour  of  activity  is  night.  Its  actions  are  in- 
sane, like  its  whole  constitution.  It  persecutes 
a  principle  ;  it  would  ;'whip  a  right ;  it  would 
tar  and  feather  justice,  by  inflicting  fire  and  out- 
rage upon  the  houses  and  persons  of  those  who 
have  these.  It  resembles  the  prank  of  boys, 
who  run  with  fire-engines  to  put  out  the  ruddy 


120  COMPENSATION 

aurora  streaming  to  the  stars.  The  inviolate 
spirit  turns  their  spite  against  the  wrongdoers. 
The  martyr  cannot  be  dishonored.  Every  lash 
inflicted  is  a  tongue  of  fame ;  every  prison  a 
more  illustrious  abode ;  every  burned  book  or 
house  enlightens  the  world ;  every  suppressed 
or  expunged  word  reverberates  through  the 
earth  from  side  to  side.1  Hours  of  sanity  and 
consideration!  are  always  arriving  to  communi- 
ties, as  to  individuals,  when  the  tVuth  is  seen 
and  the  martyrs  are  justified. 

Thus  do  all  things  preach  the  indifferency 
of  circumstances.  The  man  is  all.  Every  thing 
has  two  sides,  a  good  and  an  evil.  Every  ad- 
vantage has  its  tax.  I  learn  to  be  content.  But 
the  doctrine  of  compensation  is  not  the  doctrine 
of  indifferency.  The  thoughtless  say,  on  hear- 
ing these  representations,  —  What  boots  it  to 
do  well  ?  there  is  one  event  to  good  and  evil ; 
if  I  gain  any  good  I  must  pay  for  it ;  if  I  lose 
any  good  I  gain/  some  other ;  all  actions  are 
indifferent. 

There  is  a  deeper  fact  in  the  soul  than  com- 
pensation, to  wit,  its  own  nature.  The  soul  is 
not  a  compensation,  but  a  life.  The  soul  is. 
Under  all  this  running  sea  of  circumstance, 
whose  waters  ebb  and  flow  with  perfect  balance, 


COMPENSATION  121 

lies  the  aboriginal  abyss  of  real  Being.  Essence, 
or  God,  is  not  a  relation  or  a  part,  but  the 
whole.1  Being  is  the  vast  affirmative,  excluding 
negation,  self-balanced,  and  swallowing  up  all 
relations,  parts  and  times  within  itself.  Nature, 
truth,  virtue,  are  the  influx  from  thence.  Vice 
is  the  absence  or/departure  of  the  same.  No- 
thing, Falsehood,  may  indeed  stand  as  the  grea't^ 
Night  or  shade  on  which  as  a  background  the 
living  universe  paints  itself  forth,  but  no  fact 
is  begotten  by  it ;  it  cannot  work,  for  it  is  not. 
It  cannot  work  any  good ;  it  cannot  work  any 
harm.  It  is  harm  inasmuch  as  it  is  worse  not 
to  be  than  to  be. 

We  feel  defrauded  of  the  retribution  due  to 
evil  acts,  because  the  criminal  adheres  to  his 
vice  and  contumacy  and  does  not  come  to  a 
crisis  or  judgment  anywhere  in  visible  nature. 
There  is  no  stunning/confutation  of  his  non- 
sense before  men  and  angels.  Has  he  therefore 
outwitted  the  law  ?  Inasmuch  as  he  carries  the 
malignity  and  the  lie  with  him  he  so  far  de- 
ceases from  nature.  In  some  manner  there  will 
be  a  demonstration  of  the  wrong  to  the  under- 
standing also ;  but,  should  we  not  see  it,  this 
deadly  deduction  makes  square  the  eternal  ac- 
count. 


122  COMPENSATION 

Neither  can  it  be  said,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  gain  of  rectitude  must  be  bought  by 
any  loss.  There  is  no  penalty  to  virtue  ;  no 
penalty  to  wisdom  ;  they  are  proper  additions 
of  being.  In  a /virtuous  action  I  properly  am  ; 
in  a  virtuous  act  I  add  to  the  world;  I  plant 
into  deserts  conquered  from  Chaos  and  Nothing 
and  see  the  darkness  receding  on  the  limits  of 
the  horizon.  There  can  be  no  excess  to  love, 
none  to  knowledge,  none  to  beauty,  when  these 
attributes  are  considered  in  the  purest  sense. 
The  soul  refuses  limits,  and  always  affirms  an 
Optimism,  never  a  Pessimism. 

His  life  is  a  progress,  and  not  a  station.  His 
instinct  is  trust.  Our  instinct  uses  "  more  "  and 
"  less  "  in  application  to  man,  of  the  presence  of 
the  soul,  and  notfof  its  absence;  the  brave  man 
is  greater  than  the  coward ;  the  true,  the  bene- 
volent, the  wise,  is  more  a  man  and  not  less, 
than  the  fool  and  knave.  There  is  no  tax  on 
the  good  of  virtue,  for  that  is  the  incoming  of 
God  himself,  or  absolute  existence,  without  any 
comparative.  Material  good  has  its  tax,  and  if 
it  came  without  desert  or  sweat,  has  no  root  in 
me,  and  the  next  wind  will  blow  it  away.  But 
all  the  good  of  nature  is  the  soul's,  and  may  be 
had  if  paid  for  in  nature's  lawful  coin,  that  is,  1 


COMPENSATION  123 

by  labor  which  the  heart  and  the  head  allow.  I 
no  longer  wish  to  meet  a  good  I  do  not  earn, 
rbr  example  to  find  a  pot  of  buried  gold,  know- 
ing that  it  brings  with  it  new  burdens.  I  do  not 
wish  more  external  goods,  —  neither  posses- 
sions, nor  honors,  nor  powers,  nor  persons. 
The  gain  is  apparent ;  the  tax  is  certain.  But 
there  is  no  tax  on  the  knowledge  that-the  com- 
pensation existsjmd  that. ,it_is_ not  desirable  to 
dig  up  treasure.1  Herein  I  rejoice  with  a  serene 
eternal  peace.  I  contract  the  boundaries  of  pos- 
sible mischief.  I  learn/ the  wisdom  of  St.  Ber- 
nard,—  "  Nothing  can  work  me  damage  except 
myself;  the  harm  that  I  sustain  I  carry  about 
with  me,  and  never  am  a  real  sufferer  but  by 
my  own  fault." 

In  the  nature  of  the  soul  is  the  compensation 
for  the  inequalities  of  condition.  The  radical 
tragedy  of  nature  seems  to  be  the  distinction  of 
More  and  Less.  How  can  Less  not  feel  the 
pain  ;  how  not  feel  indignation  or  malevolence 
towards  More  ?  Look  at  those  who  have  less 
faculty,  and  one  feels  sad  and  knows  not  well 
what  to  make  of  it.  He  almost  shuns  their/ 
eye ;  he  fears  they  will  upbraid  God.  What 
should  they  do  ?  It  seems  a  great  injustice. 
But  see  the  facts  nearly  and  these  mountainous 


124  COMPENSATION 

inequalities  vanish.  Love  reduces  them  as  the 
sun  melts  the  iceberg  in  the  sea.  The  heart 
and  soul  of  all  men  being  one,  this  bitterness 
of  His  and  Mine  ceases.  His  is  mine.  I  am  my 
brother  and  my  brother  is  me.  If  I  feel  over- 
shadowed and  outdone  by  great  neighbors,  I 
can  yet  love  ;  I  can  still  receive ;  and  he  that 
loveth  maketh  his  own  the  grandeur  he  loves. 
Thereby  I  make  the  discovery  that/my  brother 
is  my  guardian,  acting  for  me  with  the  friend' 
liest  designs,  and  the  estate  I  so  admired  and 
envied  is  my  own.  It  is  the  nature  of  the  soul 
to  appropriate  all  things.  Jesus  and  Shakspeare 
are  fragments  of  the  soul,  and  by  love  I  con- 
quer and  incorporate  them  in  my  own  conscious 
domain.  His  virtue,  —  is  not  that  mine?  His 
wit,  —  if  it  cannot  be  made  mine,  it  is  not  wit. 
Such  also  is  the  natural  history  of  calamity. 
The  changes  which  break  up  at  short  intervals 
the  prosperity  of  men  are  advertisements  of  a 
nature  whose  law/is  growth.  Every  soul  is  by 
this  intrinsic  necessity  quitting  its  whole  system 
of  things,  its  friends  and  home  and  laws  and 
faith,  as  the  shell-fish  crawls  out  of  its  beautiful 
but  stony  case,  because  it  no  longer  admits  of 
its  growth,  and  slowly  forms  a  new  house.  In 
proportion  to  the  vigor  of  the  individual  these 


COMPENSATION  125 

revolutions  are  frequent,  until  in  some  happier 
mind  they  are  incessant  and  all  worldly  rela- 
tions hang  very  loosely  about  him,  becoming  as 
it  were  a  transparent  fluid  membrane  through 
which  the  living  form  is  seen,  and  not,  as  in 
most/men,  an  indurated  heterogeneous  fabric  of 
many  dates  and  of  no  settled  character,  in  which 
the  man  is  imprisoned.  Then  there  can  be  en- 
largement, and  the  man  of  to-day  scarcely  recog- 
nizes the  man  of  yesterday.  And  such  should 
be  the  outward  biography  of  man  in  time,  a  put- 
ting off  of  dead  circumstances  day  by  day,  as  he 
renews  his  raiment  day  by  day.  But  to  us,  in 
our  lapsed  estate,  resting,  not  advancing,  resist- 
ing, not  cooperating  with  the  divine  expansion, 
this  growth  comes  by  shocks. 

We  cannot  part  with  our  friends.  We  cannot 
let  our  angels  go.  We  do/not  see  that  they  only 
go  out  that  archangels  may  come  in.1  We  are 
idolaters  of  the  old.  We  do  not  believe  in  the 
riches  of  the  soul,  in  its  proper  eternity  and  om- 
nipresence. We  do  not  believe  there  is  any  force 
in  to-day  to  rival  or  recreate  that  beautiful  yes- 
terday. We  linger  in  the  ruins  of  the  old  tent 
where  once  we  had  bread  and  shelter  and  organs, 
nor  believe  that  the  spirit  can  feed,  cover,  and 
nerve  us  again.  We  cannot  again  find  aught  so 


126  COMPENSATION 

dear,  so  sweet,  so  graceful.  But  we  sit  and  weep 
in  vain.  The/voice  of  the  Almighty  saith, f  Up 
and  onward  for  evermore  ! '  We  cannot  stay 
amid  the  ruins.  Neither  will  we  rely  on  the 
new  ;  and  so  we  walk  ever  with  reverted  eyes, 
like  those  monsters  who  look  backwards. 

And  yet  the  compensations  of  calamity  are 
made  apparent  to  the  understanding  also,  after 
long  intervals  of  time.  A  fever,  a  mutilation,  a 
cruel  disappointment,  a  loss  of  wealth,  a  loss 
of  friends,  seems  at  the  moment  unpaid  loss, 
and  unpayable.  But  the  sure  years  reveal  the 
deep  remedial  force  that  underlies  all  facts.  The 
death  of  a  dear  friend,  wife,  brotherylover,  which 
seemed  nothing  but  privation,  somewhat  later 
assumes  the  aspect  of  a  guide  or  genius ;  for  it 
commonly  operates  revolutions  in  our  way  of 
life,  terminates  an  epoch  of  infancy  or  of  youth 
which  was  waiting  to  be  closed,  breaks  up  a 
wonted  occupation,  or  a  household,  or  style  of 
living,  and  allows  the  formation  of  new  ones 
more  friendly  to  the  growth  of  character.  It  per- 
mits or  constrains  the  formation  of  new  acquaint- 
ances and  the  reception  of  new  influences  that 
prove  of  the  first  importance  to  the  next  years' ; 
and  the  man  or  woman  who  would  have/re- 
mained a  sunny  garden-flower,  with  no  room  for 


COMPENSATION  127 

its  roots  and  too  much  sunshine  for  its  head,  by 
the  falling  of  the  walls  and  the  neglect  of  the 
gardener  is  made  the  banian  of  the  forest,  yield- 
ing shade  and  fruit  to  wide  neighborhoods  of 
men. 


IV 
SPIRITUAL   LAWS1 

THE  living  Heaven  thy  prayers  respect, 
House  at  once  and  architect, 
Quarrying  man's  rejected  hours, 
Builds  there  with  eternal  towers  ; 
Sole  and  self-commanded  works, 
Fears  not  undermining  days, 
Grows  by  decays, 

And,  by  the  famous  might  that  lurks 
In  reaction  and  recoil, 
Makes  flame  to  freeze  and  ice  to  boil; 
Forging,  through  swart  arms  of  Offence» 
The  silver  seat  of  Innocence. 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS 

WHEN  the  act  of  reflection  takes  place  in 
the  mind,  when  we  look  at  ourselves  in 
the  light  of  thought,  we  discover  that  our  life  is 
embosomed  in  beauty.  Behind  us,  as  we  go,  all 
things  assume  pleasing  forms,  as  clouds  do  far 
off.  Not  only  things  familiar  and  stale,  but  even 
the  tragic  and  terrible  are  comely  as  they  take 
their  place  in  the  pictures  of  memory.  The 
river-bank,  the  weed  at  the  water-side,  the  old 
house,  the  foolish  person,  however  neglected  in 
the  passing,  have  a  grace  in  the  past.  Even  the 
corpse  that  has  lain  in  the  chambers  has  added 
a  solemn  ornament  to  the  house.1  The  soul  will 
not  know  either  deformity  or  pain.  If  in  the 
hours  of  clear  reason  we  should  speak  the  sever- 
est truth,  we  should  say  that  we  had  never  made 
a  sacrifice.  In  these  hours  the  mind  seems  so 
great  that  nothing  can  be  taken  from  us  that 
seems  much.  All  loss,  all  pain,  is  particular ;  the 
universe  remains  to  the  heart  unhurt.2  Neither 
vexations  nor  calamities  abate  our  trust.  No 
man  ever  stated  his  griefs  as  lightly  as  he  might. 
Allow  for  exaggeration  in  the  most  patient  and 
sorely  ridden  hack  that  ever  was  driven.  For  it 


132  SPIRITUAL   LAWS 

is  only  the  finite  that  has  wrought  and  suffered  j 
the  infinite  lies  stretched  in  smiling  repose. 

The  intellectual  life  may  be  kept  clean  and 
healthful  if  man  will  live  the  life  of  nature  and 
not  import  into  his  mind  difficulties  which  are 
none  of  his.  No  man  need  be  perplexed  in  his 
speculations.  Let  him  do  and  say  what  strictly 
belongs  to  him,  and  though  very  ignorant  of 
books,  his  nature  shall  not  yield  him  any  intel- 
lectual obstructions  and  doubts.  Our  young  peo- 
ple are  diseased  with  the  theological  problems 
of  original  sin,  origin  of  evil,  predestination  and 
the  like.  These  never  presented  a  practical  dif- 
ficulty to  any  man,  —  never  darkened  across  any 
man's  road  who  did  not  go  out  of  his  way  to 
seek  them.  These  are  the  soul's  mumps  and 
measles  and  whooping-coughs,  and  those  who 
have  not  caught  them  cannot  describe  their 
health  or  prescribe  the  cure.  A  simple  mind  will 
not  know  these  enemies.1  It  is  quite  another 
thing  that  he  should  be  able  to  give  account  of 
his  faith  and  expound  to  another  the  theory  of 
his  self-union  and  freedom.  This  requires  rare 
gifts.  Yet  without  this  self-knowledge  there 
may  be  a  sylvan  strength  and  integrity  in  that 
which  he  is.  "  A  few  strong  instincts  and  a  few 
plain  rules  "  suffice  us.a 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS  133 

My  will  never  gave  the  images  in  my  mind 
the  rank  they  now  take.  The  regular  course  of 
studies,  the  years  of  academical  and  professional 
education  have  not  yielded  me  better  facts  than 
some  idle  books  under  the  bench  at  the  Latin 
School.  What  we  do  not  call  education  is  more 
precious  than  that  which  we  call  so.  We  form 
no  guess,  at  the  time  of  receiving  a  thought, 
of  its  comparative  value.  And  education  often 
wastes  its  effort  in  attempts  to  thwart  and  balk 
«;his  natural  magnetism,  which  is  sure  to  select 
what  belongs  to  it.1 

In  like  manner  our  moral  nature  is  vitiated 
by  any  interference  of  our  will.  People  repre- 
sent virtue  as  a  struggle,  and  take  to  themselves 
great  airs  upon  their  attainments,  and  the  ques- 
tion is  everywhere  vexed  when  a  noble  nature  is 
commended,  whether  the  man  is  not  better  who 
strives  with  temptation.  But  there  is  no  merit 
in  the  matter.  Either  God  is  there  or  he  is  not 
there.  We  love  characters  in  proportion  as  they 
are  impulsive  and  spontaneous.  The  less  a  man 
thinks  or  knows  about  his  virtues  the  better  we 
like  him.  Timoleon's  victories  are  the  best 
victories,  which  ran  and  flowed  like  Homer's 
verses,  Plutarch  said.  When  we  see  a  soul 
whose  acts  are  all  regal,  graceful  and  pleasant  as 


I34  SPIRITUAL   LAWS 

roses,  we  must  thank  God  that  such  things  can 
be  and  are,  and  not  turn  sourly  on  the  angel  and 

y^  say  '  Crump  is  a  better  man  with  his  grunting 
resistance  to  all  his  native  devils.' 

Not  less  conspicuous  is  the  preponderance 
of  nature  over  will  in  all  practical  life.  There  is 
less  intention  in  history  than  we  ascribe  to  it. 
We  impute  deep-laid  far-sighted  plans  to  Caesar 
and  Napoleon  ;  but  the  best  of  their  power  was 
in  nature,  not  in  them.  Men  of  an  extraordi- 
nary success,  in  their  honest  moments,  have 

i*Ji  always  sung  *  Not  unto  us,  not  unto  us.'  Ac- 
cording to  the  faith  of  their  times  they  have 
built  altars  to  Fortune,  or  to  Destiny,  or  to  St. 
Julian.  Their  success  lay  in  their  parallelism  to 
the  course  of  thought,  which  found  in  them  an 
unobstructed  channel ;  and  the  wonders  of  which 
they  were  the  visible  conductors  seemed  to  the 
eye  their  deed.  Did  the  wires  generate  the  gal- 
vanism ?  It  is  even  true  that  there  was  less  in 
them  on  which  they  could  reflect  than  in  an- 
other ;  as  the  virtue  of  a  pipe  is  to  be  smooth 
and  hollow.1  That  which  externally  seemed  will 
and  immovableness  was  willingness  and  self-an- 
nihilation. Could  Shakspeare  give  a  theory  of 
Shakspeare  ?  Could  ever  a  man  of  prodigious 
mathematical  genius  convey  to  others  any  in- 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS  135 

sight  into  his  methods  ?  If  he  could  communi- 
cate that  secret  it  would  instantly  lose  its  exag- 
gerated value,  blending  with  the  daylight  and  the 
vital  energy  the  power  to  stand  and  to  go. 

The  lesson  is  forcibly  taught  by  these  obser- 
vations that  our  life  might  be  much  easier  and 
simpler  than  we  make  it ;  that  the  world  might 
be  a  happier  place  than  it  is ;  that  there  is  no 
need  of  struggles,  convulsions,  and  despairs,  of 
the  wringing  of  the  hands  and  the  gnashing  of 
the  teeth  ;  that  we  miscreate  our  own  evils.  We 
interfere  with  the  optimism  of  nature ;  for  when- 
ever we  get  this  vantage-ground  of  the  past,  or 
of  a  wiser  mind  in  the  present,  we  are  able  to 
discern  that  we  are  begirt  with  laws  which  exe- 
cute themselves. 

The  face  of  external  nature  teaches  the  same 
lesson.  Nature  will  not  have  us  fret  and  fume. 
She  does  not  like  our  benevolence  or  our  learn- 
ing much  better  than  she  likes  our  frauds  and 
wars.  When  we  come  out  of  the  caucus,  or  the 
bank,  or  the  Abolition-convention,  or  the  Tem- 
perance-meeting, or  the  Transcendental  club 
into  the  fields  and  woods,  she  says  to  us,  *  So 
hot  ?  my  little  Sir.'  * 

We  are  full  of  mechanical  actions.  We  must 
needs  intermeddle  and  have  things  in  our  own 


136  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

way,  until  the  sacrifices  and  virtues  of  society 
are  odious.  Love  should  make  joy  ;  but  our 
benevolence  is  unhappy.  Our  Sunday-schools 
and  churches  and  pauper-societies  are  yokes 
to  the  neck.  We  pain  ourselves  to  please  no- 
body. There  are  natural  ways  of  arriving  at  the 
same  ends  at  which  these  aim,  but  do  not  arrive. 
Why  should  all  virtue  work  in  one  and  the 
same  way  ?  Why  should  all  give  dollars  ?  It  is 
very  inconvenient  to  us  country  folk,  and  we 
do  not  think  any  good  will  come  of  it.  We 
have  not  dollars,  merchants  have ;  let  them 
give  them.  Farmers  will  give  corn  ;  poets  will 
sing ;  women  will  sew ;  laborers  will  lend  a 
hand ;  the  children  will  bring  flowers.  And  why 
drag  this  dead  weight  of  a  Sunday-school  over" 
the  whole  Christendom  ?  It  is  natural  and  beau- 
tiful that  childhood  should  inquire  and  maturity 
should  teach  ;  but  it  is  time  enough  to  answer 
questions  when  they  are  asked.  Do  not  shut 
up  the  young  people  against  their  will  in  a  pew 
and  force  the  children  to  ask  them  questions 
for  an  hour  against  their  will. 

If  we  look  wider,  things  are  all  alike;  laws 
and  letters  and  creeds  and  modes  of  living  seem 
a  travesty  of  truth.  Our  society  is  encumbered 
by  ponderous  machinery,  which  resembles  the 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  137 

endless  aqueducts  which  the  Romans  built  over 
hill  and  dale  and  which  are  superseded  by  the 
discovery  of  the  law  that  water  rises  to  the  level 
of  its  source.  It  is  a  Chinese  wall  which  any- 
nimble  Tartar  can  leap  over.  It  is  a  standing 
army,  not  so  good  as  a  peace.  It  is  a  graduated, 
titled,  richly  appointed  empire,  quite  superflu- 
ous when  town-meetings  are  found  to  answer 
just  as  well. 

Let  us  draw  a  lesson  from  nature,  which  al- 
ways works  by  short  ways.  When  the  fruit  is 
ripe,  it  falls.  When  the  fruit  is  despatched,  the 
leaf  falls.  The  circuit  of  the  waters  is  mere  fall- 
ing. The  walking  of  man  and  all  animals  is  a 
falling  forward.  All  our  manual  labor  and  works 
of  strength,  as  prying,  splitting,  digging,  rowing 
and  so  forth,  are  done  by  dint  of  continual  fall- 
ing, and  the  globe,  earth,  moon,  comet,  sun, 
star,  fall  for  ever  and  ever. 

The  simplicity  of  the  universe  is  very  differ- 
ent from  the  simplicity  of  a  machine.  He  who 
sees  moral  nature  out  and  out  and  thoroughly 
knows  how  knowledge  is  acquired  and  charac- 
ter formed,  is  a  pedant.  The  simplicity  of  na- 
ture  is  not  that  which  may  easily  be  read,  but 
is  inexhaustible.  The  last  analysis  can  no  wise 
be  made.  We  judge  of  a  man's  wisdom  by  his 


I3&  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

hope,  knowing  that  the  perception  of  the  inex- 
haustibleness  of  nature  is  an  immortal  youth. 
The  wild  fertility  of  nature  is  felt  in  comparing 
our  rigid  names  and  reputations  with  our  fluid 
consciousness.  We  pass  in  the  world  for  sects 
and  schools,  for  erudition  and  piety,  and  we 
are  all  the  time  jejune  babes.  One  sees  very 
well  how  Pyrrhonism  grew  up.1  Every  man 
sees  that  he  is  that  middle  point  whereof  every 
thing  may  be  affirmed  and  denied  with  equal 
reason.  He  is  old,  he  is  young,  he  is  very  wise, 
he  is  altogether  ignorant.  He  hears  and  feels 
what  you  say  of  the  seraphim,  and  of  the  tin- 
peddler.  There  is  no  permanent  wise  man  ex- 
cept in  the  figment  of  the  Stoics.  We  side  with 
the  hero,  as  we  read  or  paint,  against  the  cow- 
ard and  the  robber  ;  but  we  have  been  ourselves 
that  coward  and  robber,  and  shall  be  again,  — 
not  in  the  low  circumstance,  but  in  comparison 
with  the  grandeurs  possible  to  the  soul. 

A  little  consideration  of  what  takes  place 
around  us  every  day  would  show  us  that  a 
higher  law  than  that  of  our  will  regulates  events  ; 
that  our  painful  labors  are  unnecessary  and 
fruitless ;  that  only  in  our  easy,  simple,  spon- 
taneous action  are  we  strong,  and  by  contenting 
ourselves  with  obedience  we  become  divine. 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  139 

Belief  and  love,  —  a  believing  love  will  relieve 
us  of  a  vast  load  of  care.  O  my  brothers,  God 
exists.  There  is  a  soul  at  the  centre  of  nature 
and  over  the  will  of  every  man,  so  that  none 
of  us  can  wrong  the  universe.  It  has  so  infused 
its  strong  enchantment  into  nature  that  we  pros- 
per when  we  accept  its  advice,  and  when  we 
struggle  to  wound  its  creatures  our  hands  are 
glued  to  our  sides,  or  they  beat  our  own  breasts. 
The  whole  course  of  things  goes  to  teach  us 
faith.  We  need  only  obey.  There  is  guidance 
for  each  of  us,  and  by  lowly  listening  we  shall 
hear  the  right  word.  Why  need  you  choose  so 
painfully  your  place  and  occupation  and  associ- 
ates and  modes  of  action  and  of  entertainment? 
Certainly  there  is  a  possible  right  for  you  that 
precludes  the  need  of  balance  and  wilful  elec- 
tion. For  you  there  is  a  reality,  a  fit  place  and 
congenial  duties.  Place  yourself  in  the  middle 
of  the  stream  of  power  and  wisdom  which  ani- 
mates all  whom  it  floats,  and  you  are  without 
effort  impelled  to  truth,  to  right  and  a  perfect 
Contentment.  Then  you  put  all  gainsayers  in 
the  wrong.  Then  you  are  the  world,  the  mea- 
sure of  right,  of  truth,  of  beauty.  If  we  would 
not  be  mar-plots  with  our  miserable  interfer- 
ences, the  work,  the  society,  letters,  arts,  sci- 


140  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

ence,  religion  of  men  would  go  on  far  better 
than  now,  and  the  heaven  predicted  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world,  and  still  predicted  from 
the  bottom_  of  the_  heart,  would  organize  itself, 
as  do  now  the  rose  and  the  air  and  the  sun. 

I  say,  do  not  choose ;  but  that  is  a  figure  of 
speech  by  which  I  would  distinguish  what  is 
commonly  called  choice  among  men,  and  which 
is  a  partial  act,  the  choice  of  the  hands,  of  the 
eyes,  of  the  appetites,  and  not  a  whole  act  of 
the  man.1  But  that  which  I  call  right  or  good- 
ness, is  the  choice  of  my  constitution  ;  and  that 
which  I  call  heaven,  and  inwardly  aspire  after,  is 
the  state  or  circumstance  desirable  to  my  consti- 
tution ;  and  the  action  which  I  in  all  my  years 
tend  to  do,  is  the  work  for  my  faculties.  We 
must  hold  a  man  amenable  to  reason  for  the 
choice  of  his  daily  craft  or  profession.  It  is  not 
an  excuse  any  longer  for  his  deeds  that  they  are 
the  custom  of  his  trade.  What  business  has  he 
with  an  evil  trade?  Has  he  not  a  calling  in 
his  character  ? 

Each  man  has  his  own  vocation.  The  talent 
is  the  call.  There  is  one  direction  in  which  all 
space  is  open  to  him.  He  has  faculties  silently 
inviting  him  thither  to  endless  exertion.  He  is 
iike  a  ship  in  a  river ;  he  runs  against  obstruc- 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  141 

tions  on  every  side  but  one,  on  that  side  all  ob- 
struction is  taken  away  and  he  sweeps  serenely 
over  a  deepening  channel  into  an  infinite  sea. 
This  talent  and  this  call  depend  on  his  organiza- 
tion, or  the  mode  in  which  the  general  soul  in- 
carnates itself  in  him.  He  inclines  to  do  some- 
thing which  is  easy  to  him  and  good  when  it  is 
done,  but  which  no  other  man  can  do.  He  has 
no  rival.  For  the  more  truly  he  consults  his 
own  powers,  the  more  difference  will  his  work 
exhibit  from  the  work  of  any  other.  His  ambi- 
tion is  exactly  proportioned  to  his  powers.  The 
height  of  the  pinnacle  is  determined  by  the 
breadth  of  the  base.  Every  man  has  this  call 
of  the  power  to  do  somewhat  unique,  and  no 
man  has  any  other  call.  The  pretence  that  he 
has  another  call,  a  summons  by  name  and  per- 
sonal election  and  outward  "  signs  that  mark  , 
him  extraordinary  and  not  in  the  roll  of  com- 
mon men,"  '  is  fanaticism,  and  betrays  obtuse- 
ness  to  perceive  that  there  is  one  mind  in  all  the 
individuals,  and  no  respect  of  persons  therein. 

By  doing  his  work  he  makes  the  need  felt 
which  he  can  supply,  and  creates  the  taste  by 
which  he  is  enjoyed.  By  doing  his  own  work 
he  unfolds  himself.  It  is  the  vice  of  our  public 
speaking  that  it  has  not  abandonment.  Some- 


I42  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

where,  not  only  every  orator  but  every  man 
should  let  out  all  the  length  of  all  the  reins  ; 
should  find  or  make  a  frank  and  hearty  expres- 
sion of  what  force  and  meaning  is  in  him.  The 
common  experience  is  that  the  man  fits  himself 
as  well  as  he  can  to  the  customary  details  of  that 
work  or  trade  he  falls  into,  and  tends  it  as  a  dog 
turns  a  spit.  Then  is  he  a  part  of  the  machine 
he  moves  ;  the  man  is  lost.  Until  he  can  man- 
age to  communicate  himself  to  others  in  his  full 
stature  and  proportion,  he  does  not  yet  find  his 
vocation.  He  must  find  in  that  an  outlet  for 
his  character,  so  that  he  may  justify  his  work  to 
their  eyes.  If  the  labor  is  mean,  let  him  by  his 
thinking  and  character  make  it  liberal.1  What- 
ever he  knows  and  thinks,  whatever  in  his 
apprehension  is  worth  doing,  that  let  him  com- 
municate, or  men  will  never  know  and  honor 
him  aright.  Foolish,  whenever  you  take  the 
meanness  and  formality  of  that  thing  you  do, 
instead  of  converting  it  into  the  obedient  spira- 
cle of  your  character  and  aims. 

We  like  only  such  actions  as  have  already 
long  had  the  praise  of  men,  and  do  not  perceive 
that  any  thing  man  can  do  may  be  divinely 
done.  We  think  greatness  entailed  or  organ- 
ized in  some  places  or  duties,  in  certain  offices 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  143 

Or  occasions,  and  do  not  see  that  Paganini  can 
extract  rapture  from  a  catgut,  and  Eulenstein 
from  a  jews-harp,  and  a  nimble-fingered  lad  out 
of  shreds  of  paper  with  his  scissors,  and  Land- 
seer  out  of  swine,  and  the  hero  out  of  the  piti- 
ful habitation  and  company  in  which  he  was 
hidden.  What  we  call  obscure  condition  or  vul- 
gar society  is  that  condition  and  society  whose 
poetry  is  not  yet  written,  but  which  you  shall 
presently  make  as  enviable  and  renowned  as 
any.  In  our  estimates  let  us  take  a  lesson  from 
kings.  The  parts  of  hospitality,  the  connection 
of  families,  the  impressiveness  of  death,  and  a 
thousand  other  things,  royalty  makes  its  own 
estimate  of,  and  a  royal  mind  will.  To  make 
habitually  a  new  estimate,  —  that  is  elevation. 

What  a  man  does,  that  he  has.  What  has  he 
to  do  with  hope  or  fear?  In  himself  is  his 
might.  Let  him  regard  no  good  as  solid  but 
that  which  is  in  his  nature  and  which  must  grow 
out  of  him  as  long  as  he  exists.  The  goods  of 
fortune  may  come  and  go  like  summer  leaves ; f 
let  him  scatter  them  on  every  wind  as  the  mo- 
mentary signs  of  his  infinite  productiveness. 

He  may  have  his  own.  A  man's  genius,  the 
quality  that  differences  him  from  every  other, 
the  susceptibility  to  one  class  of  influences,  the 


144  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

selection  of  what  is  fit  for  him,  the  rejection  of 
what  is  unfit,  determines  for  him  the  character 
of  the  universe.  A  man  is  a  method,  a  progres- 
sive arrangement ;  a  selecting  principle,  gather- 
ing his  like  to  him  wherever  he  goes.  He  takes 
only  his  own  out  of  the  multiplicity  that  sweeps 
and  circles  round  him.  He  is  like  one  of  those 
booms  which  are  set  out  from  the  shore  on 
rivers  to  catch  drift-wood,  or  like  the  loadstone 
amongst  splinters  of  steel.  Those  facts,  words, 
persons,  which  dwell  in  his  memory  without  his 
being  able  to  say  why,  remain  because  they  have 
a  relation  to  him  not  less  real  for  being  as  yet 
unapprehended.  They  are  symbols  of  value  to 
him  as  they  can  interpret  parts  of  his  conscious- 
ness which  he  would  vainly  seek  words  for  in 
the  conventional  images  of  books  and  other 
minds.  What  attracts  my  attention  shall  have 
it,  as  I  will  go  to  the  man  who  knocks  at  my 
door,  whilst  a  thousand  persons  as  worthy  go 
by  it,  to  whom  I  give  no  regard.  It  is  enough 
that  these  particulars  speak  to  me.  A  few  anec- 
dotes, a  few  traits  of  character,  manners,  face,  a 
few  incidents,  have  an  emphasis  in  your  mem- 
ory out  of  all  proportion  to  their  apparent  sig- 
nificance if  you  measure  them  by  the  ordinary 
standards.  They  relate  to  your  gift.  Let  them 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  145 

have  their  weight,  and  do  not  reject  them  and 
cast  about  for  illustration  and  facts  more  usual 
in  literature.  What  your  heart  thinks  great,  is 
great.  The  soul's  emphasis  is  always  right. 

Over  all  things  that  are  agreeable  to  his  na- 
ture and  genius  the  man  has  the  highest  right. 
Everywhere  he  may  take  what  belongs  to  his 
spiritual  estate,  nor  can  he  take  anything  else 
though  all  doors  were  open,  nor  can  all  the  force 
of  men  hinder  him  from  taking  so  much.  It  is 
vain  to  attempt  to  keep  a  secret  from  one  who 
has  a  right  to  know  it.  It  will  tell  itself.  That 
mood  into  which  a  friend  can  bring  us  is  his  do- 
minion over  us.  To  the  thoughts  of  that  state 
of  mind  he  has  a  right.  All  the  secrets  of  that 
state  of  mind  he  can  compel.  This  is  a  law  which 
statesmen  use  in  practice.  All  the  terrors  of  the 
French  Republic,  which  held  Austria  in  awe,  were 
unable  to  command  her  diplomacy.  But  Napo- 
leon sent  to  Vienna  M.  de  Narbonne,  one  of 
the  old  noblesse,  with  the  morals,  manners  and 
name  of  that  interest,  saying  that  it  was  indis- 
pensable to  send  to  the  old  aristocracy  of  Europe 
men  of  the  same  connection,  which  in  fact  con- 
stitutes a  sort  of  free-masonry.  M.  de  Narbonne 
in  less  than  a  fortnight  penetrated  all  the  secrets 
of  the  imperial  cabinet. 


146  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

Nothing  seems  so  easy  as  to  speak  and  to  be 
understood.  Yet  a  man  may  come  to  find  that 
the  strongest  of  defences  and  of  ties,  —  that  he 
has  been  understood ;  and  he  who  has  received 
an  opinion  may  come  to  find  it  the  most  incon- 
venient of  bonds. 

If  a  teacher  have  any  opinion  which  he  wishes 
to  conceal,  his  pupils  will  become  as  fully  in- 
doctrinated into  that  as  into  any  which  he  pub- 
lishes. If  you  pour  water  into  a  vessel  twisted 
into  coils  and  angles,  it  is  vain  to  say,  I  will 
pour  it  only  into  this  or  that ;  —  it  will  find  its 
level  in  all.  Men  feel  and  act  the  consequences 
of  your  doctrine  without  being  able  to  show  how 
they  follow.  Show  us  an  arc  of  the  curve,  and 
a  good  mathematician  will  find  out  the  whole 
figure.  We  are  always  reasoning  from  the  seen 
to  the  unseen.  Hence  the  perfect  intelligence 
that  subsists  between  wise  men  of  remote  ages. 
A  man  cannot  bury  his  meanings  so  deep  in 
his  book  but  time  and  like-minded  men  will 
find  them.  Plato  had  a  secret  doctrine,  had  he  r 
What  secret  can  he  conceal  from  the  eyes  of 
Bacon  ?  of  Montaigne  ?  of  Kant  ?  Therefore 
Aristotle  said  of  his  works,  "They  are  published 
and  not  published." 

No  man  can  learn  what  he  has  not  prepara- 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  147 

tion  for  learning,  however  near  to  his  eyes  is  the 
object.  A  chemist  may  tell  his  most  precious 
secrets  to  a  carpenter,  and  he  shall  be  never  the 
wiser,  —  the  secrets  he  would  not  utter  to  a 
chemist  for  an  estate.  God  screens  us  evermore 
from  premature  ideas.  Our  eyes  are  holden  that 
we  cannot  see  things  that  stare  us  in  the  face, 
until  the  hour  arrives  when  the  mind  is  ripened  ; 
then  we  behold  them,  and  the  time  when  we  saw 
them  not  is  like  a  dream. 

Not  in  nature  but  in  man  is  all  the  beauty  and 
worth  he  sees.  The  world  is  very  empty,  and 
is  indebted  to  this  gilding,  exalting  soul  for  all 
its  pride.  "  Earth  fills  her  lap  with  splendors  " 
not  her  own.1  The  vale  of  Tempe,  Tivoli  and 
Rome  are  earth  and  water,  rocks  and  sky.  There 
are  as  good  earth  and  water  in  a  thousand  places, 
yet  how  unaffecting  ! 

People  are  not  the  better  for  the  sun  and 
moon,  the  horizon  and  the  trees ;  as  it  is  not 
observed  that  the  keepers  of  Roman  galleries 
or  the  valets  of  painters  have  any  elevation  of 
thought,  or  that  librarians  are  wiser  men  than 
others.  There  are  graces  in  the  demeanor  of  a 
polished  and  noble  person  which  are  lost  upon 
the  eye  of  a  churl.  These  are  like  the  stars 
whose  light  has  not  yet  reached  us. 


'148  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

He  may  see  what  he  maketh.  Our  dreams 
are  the  sequel  of  our  waking  knowledge.1  The 
visions  of  the  night  bear  some  proportion  to 
the  visions  of  the  day.  Hideous  dreams  are  ex- 
aggerations of  the  sins  of  the  day.  We  see  our 
evil  affections  embodied  in  bad  physiognomies. 
On  the  Alps  the  traveller  sometimes  beholds  his 
own  shadow  magnified  to  a  giant,  so  that  every 
gesture  of  his  hand  is  terrific.  "  My  children,'* 
said  an  old  man  to  his  boys  scared  by  a  figure 
in  the  dark  entry,  "  my  children,  you  will  never 
see  anything  worse  than  yourselves."  As  in 
dreams,  so  in  the  scarcely  less  fluid  events  of  the 
world  every  man  sees  himself  in  colossal,  with- 
out knowing  that  it  is  himself.  The  good,  com- 
pared to  the  evil  which  he  sees,  is  as  his  own 
good  to  his  own  evil.  Every  quality  of  his  mind 
is  magnified  in  some  one  acquaintance,  and  every 
emotion  of  his  heart  in  some  one.  He  is  like 
a  quincunx  of  trees,  which  counts  five,  —  east, 
west,  north,  or  south  ;  or  an  initial,  medial,  and 
terminal  acrostic.  And  why  not?  He  cleaves 
to  one  person  and  avoids  another,  according  to 
their  likeness  or  unlikeness  to  himself,  truly 
seeking  himself  in  his  associates  and  moreover 
in  his  trade  and  habits  and  gestures  and  meats 
and  drinks,  and  conies  at  last  to  be  faithfully 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  149 

represented  by  every  view  you  take  of  his  cir- 
cumstances. 

He  may  read  what  he  writes.  What  can  we 
see  or  acquire  but  what  we  are  ?  You  have  ob- 
served a  skilful  man  reading  Virgil.  Well,  that 
author  is  a  thousand  books  to  a  thousand  per- 
sons. Take  the  book  into  your  two  hands  and 
read  your  eyes  out,  you  will  never  find  what  I 
find.  If  any  ingenious  reader  would  have  a  mo- 
nopoly of  the  wisdom  or  delight  he  gets,  he  is 
as  secure  now  the  book  is  Englished,  as  if  it 
were  imprisoned  in  the  Pelews'  tongue.  It  is 
with  a  good  book  as  it  is  with  good  company. 
Introduce  a  base  person  among  gentlemen,  it  is 
all  to  no  purpose ;  he  is  not  their  fellow.  Every 
society  protects  itself.  The  company  is  perfectly 
safe,  and  he  is  not  one  of  them,  though  his  body 
is  in  the  room. 

What  avails  it  to  fight  with  the  eternal  laws 
of  mind,  which  adjust  the  relation  of  all  persons 
to  each  other  by  the  mathematical  measure  of 
their  havings  and  beings  ?  Gertrude  is  enamored 
of  Guy ;  how  high,  how  aristocratic,  how  Ro- 
man his  mien  and  manners  !  to  live  with  him 
were  life  indeed,  and  no  purchase  is  too  great ; 
and  heaven  and  earth  are  moved  to  that  end. 
Well,  Gertrude  has  Guv ;  but  what  now  avails 


ISO  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

how  high,  how  aristocratic,  how  Roman  his  mien 
and  manners,  if  his  heart  and  aims  are  in  the 
senate,  in  the  theatre  and  in  the  billiard-room, 
and  she  has  no  aims,  no  conversation  that  can 
enchant  her  graceful  lord  ? 

He  shali  have  his  own  society.  We  can  love 
nothing  but  nature.  The  most  wonderful  tal- 
ents, the  most  meritorious  exertions  really  avail 
very  little  with  us  ;  but  nearness  or  likeness  of 
nature,  —  how  beautiful  is  the  ease  of  its  vic- 
tory! Persons  approach  us,  famous  for  their 
beauty,  for  their  accomplishments,  worthy  of  all 
wonder  for  their  charms  and  gifts;  they  dedicate 
their  whole  skill  to  the  hour  and  the  company, 
—  with  very  imperfect  result.  To  be  sure  it 
would  be  ungrateful  in  us  not  to  praise  them 
loudly.  Then,  when  all  is  done,  a  person  of  re- 
lated mind,  a  brother  or  sister  by  nature,  comes 
to  us  so  softly  and  easily,  so  nearly  and  inti- 
mately, as  if  it  were  the  blood  in  our  proper 
veins,  that  we  feel  as  if  some  one  was  gone,  in- 
stead of  another  having  come  ;  we  are  utterly 
relieved  and  refreshed  ;  it  is  a  sort  of  joyful  soli- 
tude. We  foolishly  think  in  our  days  of  sin  thaf 
we  must  court  friends  by  compliance  to  the  cus- 
toms of  society,  to  its  dress,  its  breeding,  and 
its  estimates.  But  only  that  soul  can  be  my 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  151 

friend  which  I  encounter  on  the  line  of  my  own 
march,  that  soul  to  which  I  do  not  decline  and 
which  does  not  decline  to  me,  but,  native  of 
the  same  celestial  latitude,  repeats  in  its  own  all 
my  experience.  The  scholar  forgets  himself  and 
apes  the  customs  and  costumes  of  the  man  of 
the  world  to  deserve  the  smile  of  beauty,  and 
follows  some  giddy  girl,  not  yet  taught  by  reli- 
gious passion  to  know  the  noble  woman  with 
all  that  is  serene,  oracular  and  beautiful  in  her 
soul.  Let  him  be  great,  and  love  shall  follow 
him.  Nothing  is  more  deeply  punished  than  tne 
neglect  of  the  affinities  by  which  alone  soci- 
ety should  be  formed,  and  the  insane  levity  of 
choosing  associates  by  others'  eyes.1 

He  may  set  his  own  rate.  It  is  a  maxim  wor- 
thy of  all  acceptation  that  a  man  may  have  that 
allowance  he  takes.  Take  the  place  and  attitude 
which  belong  to  you,  and  all  men  acquiesce. 
The  world  must  be  just.  It  leaves  every  man, 
with  profound  unconcern,  to  set  his  own  rate. 
Hero  or  driveller,  it  meddles  not  in  the  matter. 
It  will  certainly  accept  your  own  measure  of  your 
doing  and  being,  whether  you  sneak  about  and 
deny  your  own  name,  or  whether  you  see  your 
work  produced  to  the  concave  sphere  of  the 
heavens,  one  with  the  revolution  of  the  stars. 


\ 


151  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

The  same  reality  pervades  all  teaching.  The 
man  may  teach  by  doing,  and  not  otherwise 
If  he  can  communicate  himself  he  can  teach, 
but  not  by  words.  He  teaches  who  gives,  and 
he  learns  who  receives.  There  is  no  teaching 
until  the  pupil  is  brought  into  the  same  state 
or  principle  in  which  you  are ;  a  transfusion 
takes  place ;  he  is  you  and  you  are  he ;  then  is 
a  teaching,  and  by  no  unfriendly  chance  or  bad 
company  can  he  ever  quite  lose  the  benefit 
But  your  propositions  run  out  of  one  ear  as 
they  ran  in  at  the  other.  We  see  it  advertised 
that  Mr.  Grand  will  deliver  an  oration  on  the 
Fourth  of  July,  and  Mr.  Hand  before  the  Me- 
chanics' Association,  and  we  do  not  go  thither, 
because  we  know  that  these  gentlemen  will  not 
communicate  their  own  character  and  experience 
to  the  company.  If  we  had  reason  to  expect 
such  a  confidence  we  should  go  through  all  in- 
convenience and  opposition.  The  sick  would 
be  carried  in  litters.  But  a  public  oration  is  an 
escapade,  a  non-committal,  an  apology,  a  gag, 
and  not  a  communication,  not  a  speech,  not  a 
man. 

A  like  Nemesis  presides  over  all  intellectual 
works.  We  have  yet  to  learn  that  the  thing 
Uttered  in  words  is  not  therefore  affirmed.  It 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  153 

must  affirm  itself,  or  no  forms  of  logic  or  of 
oath  can  give  it  evidence.  The  sjentence _ must  ; 
also  contain  its  own  apology  for  being  spoken.1 
The  effect  of  any  writing  on  the  public  mind 
is  mathematically  measurable  by  its  depth  of 
thought.  How  much  water  does  it  draw  ?  If 
it  awaken  you  to  think,  if  it  lift  you  from  your 
feet  with  the  great  voice  of  eloquence,  then  the 
effect  is  to  be  wide,  slow,  permanent,  over  the 
minds  of  men ;  if  the  pages  instruct  you  not, 
they  will  die  like  flies  in  the  hour.  The  way  to 
speak  and  write  what  shall  not  go  out  of  fashion 
is  to  speak  and  write  sincerely.  The  argument 
which  has  not  power  to  reach  my  own  practice, 
I  may  well  doubt  will  fail  to  reach  yours.  But 
take  Sidney's  maxim  :  —  "  Look  in  thy  heart, 
and  write."  He  that  writes  to  himself  writes  to 
an  eternal  public.  That  statement  only  is  fit 
to  be  made  public  which  you  have  come  at  in 
attempting  to  satisfy  your  own  curiosity.  The 
writer  who  takes  his  subject  from  his  ear  and 
not  from  his  heart,  should  know  that  he  has 
lost  as  much  as  he  seems  to  have  gained,  and 
when  the  empty  book  has  gathered  all  its  praise, 
and  half  the  people  say,  *  What  poetry !  what 
genius ! '  it  still  needs  fuel  to  make  fire.  That 
c-aly  profits  which  is  profitable.  Life  alone  can  / 


I54  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

impart  life;  and  though  we  shjuld  burst  we 
can  only  be  valued  as  we  make  ourselves  valu- 
able. There  is  no  luck  in  literary  reputation. 
They  who  make  up  the  final  verdict  upon  every 
book  are  not  the  partial  and  noisy  readers  of 
the  hour  when  it  appears,  but  a  court  as  of  an- 
gels, a  public  not  to  be  bribed,  not  to  be  en- 
treated and  not  to  be  overawed,  decides  upon 
every  man's  title  to  fame.  Only  those  books 
come  down  which  deserve  to  last.  Gilt  edges, 
vellum  and  morocco,  and  presentation  -  copies 
to  all  the  libraries  will  not  preserve  a  book  in 
circulation  beyond  its  intrinsic  date.  It  must  go 
with  all  Walpole's  Noble  and  Royal  Authors 
to  its  fate.  Blackmore,  Kotzebue  or  Pollok 
may  endure  for  a  night,  but  Moses  and  Homer 
stand  for  ever.  There  are  not  in  the  world  at 
any  one  time  more  than  a  dozen  persons  who 
read  and  understand  Plato, —  never  enough  to 
pay  for  an  edition  of  his  works  ;  yet  to  every 
generation  these  come  duly  down,  for  the  sake 
of  those  few  persons,  as  if  God  brought  them  in 
his  hand.  "No  book,"  said  Bentley,  "was  ever 
written  down  by  any  but  itself."  The  perma- 
nence of  all  books  is  fixed  by  no  effort,  friendly 
or  hostile,  but  by  their  own  specific  gravity,  or 
the  intrinsic  importance  of  their  contents  to  the 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  155 

constant  mind  of  man.    "  Do  not  trouble  your-  j 
self  too  much  about  the  light  on  your  statue,"  | 
said  Michel  Angelo  to  the  young  sculptor;  "the 
light  of  the  public  square  will  test  its  value." 

In  like  manner  the  effect  of  every  action  is 
measured  by  the  depth  of  the  sentiment  from 
which  it  proceeds.  The  great  man  knew  not 
that  he  was  great.  It  took  a  century  or  two  for 
that  fact  to  appear.  What  he  did,  he  did  be- 
cause he  must ;  it  was  the  most  natural  thing  in 
the  world,  and  grew  out  of  the  circumstances  of 
the  moment.  But  now,  every  thing  he  did,  even 
to  the  lifting  of  his  finger  or  the  eating  of  bread, 
looks  large,  all-related,  and  is  called  an  institu- 
tion. 

These  are  the  demonstrations  in  a  few  par- 
ticulars of  the  genius  of  nature  ;  they  show  the 
direction  of  the  stream.  But  the  stream  is  blood ; 
every  drop  is  alive.  Truth  has  not  single  victo- 
ries ;  all  things  are  its  organs,  —  not  only  dust 
and  stones,  but  errors  and  lies.  The  laws  of  dis- 
ease, physicians  say,  are  as  beautiful  as  the  laws 
of  health.  Our  philosophy  is  affirmative  and 
readily  accepts  the  testimony  of  negative  facts, 
as^ev^y_sHadowpoints  to  the  sun.  By  a  divine 
necessity  every  fact  in  nature  is  constrained  to 
offer  its  testimony. 


156  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

Human  character  evermore  publishes  itself. 
The  most  fugitive  deed  and  word,  the  mere  air 
of  doing  a  thing,  the  intimated  purpose,  ex- 
presses character.  If  you  act  you  show  charac- 
ter ;  if  you  sit  still,  if  you  sleep,  you  show  it. 
You  think  because  you  have  spoken  nothing 
when  others  spoke,  and  have  given  no  opinion 
on  the  times,  on  the  church,  on  slavery,  on  mar- 
riage, on  socialism,  on  secret  societies,  on  the 
college,  on  parties  and  persons,  that  your  ver- 
dict is  still  expected  with  curiosity  as  a  reserved 
wisdom.  Far  otherwise ;  your  silence  answers 
very  loud.  You  have  no  oracle  to  utter,  and 
your  fellow-men  have  learned  that  you  cannot 
help  them ;  for  oracles  speak.  Doth  not  Wis- 
dom cry  and  Understanding  put  forth  her 
voice  ? 

Dreadful  limits  are  set  in  nature  to  the  powers 
of  dissimulation.  Truth  tyrannizes  over  the  un- 
willing members  of  the  body.  Faces  never  lie, 
it  is  said.  No  man  need  be  deceived  who  will 
study  the  changes  of  expression.  When  a  man 
speaks  the  truth  in  the  spirit  of  truth,  his  eye  is 
as  clear  as  the  heavens.  When  he  has  base  ends 
and  speaks  falsely,  the  eye  is  muddy  and  some- 
times asquint. 

I  have  heard  an  experienced  counsellor '  say 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  157 

that  he  never  feared  the  effect  upon  a  jury  of  a 
lawyer  who  does  not  believe  in  his  heart  that  his 
client  ought  to  have  a  verdict.  If  he  does  not 
believe  it  his  unbelief  will  appear  to  the  jury, 
despite  all  his  protestations,  and  will  become 
their  unbelief.  This  is  that  law  whereby  a  work 
of  art,  of  whatever  kind,  sets  us  in  the  same 
state  of  mind  wherein  the  artist  was  when  he 
made  it.  That  which  we  do  not  believe  we  j 
cannot  adequately  say,  though  we  may  repeat 
the  words  never  so  often.  It  was  this  con-  ', 
viction  which  Swedenborg  expressed  when  he 
described  a  group  of  persons  in  the  spiritual 
world  endeavoring  in  vain  to  articulate  a  pro- 
position which  they  did  not  believe ;  but  they 
could  not,  though  they  twisted  and  folded  their 
lips  even  to  indignation. 

A  man  passes  for  that  he  is  worth.  Very  idle 
is  all  curiosity  concerning  other  people's  esti- 
mate of  us,  and  all  fear  of  remaining  unknown  is 
not  less  so.  If  a  man  know  that  he  can  do  any 
thing,  —  that  he  can  do  it  better  than  any  one 
else,  —  he  has  a  pledge  of  the  acknowledgment 
of  that  fact  by  all  persons.  The  world  is  full  of 
judgment-days,  and  into  every  assembly  that 
a  man  enters,  in  every  action  he  attempts,  he  is 
gauged  and  stamped.  In  every  troop  of  boys 


158  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

that  whoop  and  run  in  each  yard  and  square,  a 
new-comer  is  as  well  and  accurately  weighed  in 
the  course  of  a  few  days  and  stamped  with  his 
right  number,  as  if  he  had  undergone  a  for- 
mal trial  of  his  strength,  speed  and  temper.  A 
stranger  comes  from  a  distant  school,  with  better 
dress,  with  trinkets  in  his  pockets,  with  airs  and 
pretensions  ;  an  older  boy  says  to  himself,  *  It 's 
of  no  use  ;  we  shall  find  him  out  to-morrow/ 
'  What  has  he  done  ? '  is  the  divine  question 
which  searches  men  and  transpierces  every  false 
reputation.  A  fop  may  sit  in  any  chair  of  the 
world  nor  be  distinguished  for  his  hour  from 
Homer  and  Washington  ;  but  there  need  never 
be  any  doubt  concerning  the  respective  ability 
of  human  beings.  Pretension  may  sit  still,  but 
cannot  act.  Pretension  never  feigned  an  act  of 
real  greatness.  Pretension  never  wrote  an  Iliad, 
nor  drove  back  Xerxes,  nor  christianized  the 
world,  nor  abolished  slavery. 

As  much  virtue  as  there  is,  so  much  appears  ; 
as  much  goodness  as  there  is,  so  much  rever- 
ence it  commands.    All  the  devils  respect  vir- 
tue.   The  high,  the  generous,  the  self-devoted 
sect  will  always  instruct  and  command  mankind. 
/  Never  was  a  sincere  word  utterly  lost.    Never 
1    a  magnanimity  fell  to  the  ground,  but  there  is 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  159 

some  heart  to  greet  and  accept  it  unexpectedly.  ; 
A  man  passes  for  that  he  is  worth.  What  he  is 
engraves  itself  on  his  face,  on  his  form,  on  his 
fortunes,  in  letters  of  light.  Concealment  avails 
him  nothing,  boasting  nothing.  There  is  con- 
fession in  the  glances  of  our  eyes,  in  our  smiles, 
in  salutations,  and  the  grasp  of  hands.  His  sin 
bedaubs  him,  mars  all  his  good  impression. 
Men  know  not  why  they  do  not  trust  him,  but 
they  do  not  trust  him.  His  vice  glasses  his  eye, 
cuts  lines  of  mean  expression  in  his  cheek, 
pinches  the  nose,  sets  the  mark  of  the  beast  on 
the  back  of  the  head,  and  writes  O  fool !  fool ! 
on  the  forehead  of  a  king. 

If  you  would  not  be  known  to  do  any  thing, 
never  do  it.  A  man  may  play  the  fool  in  the 
drifts  of  a  desert,  but  every  grain  of  sand  shall 
seem  to  see.  He  may  be  a  solitary  eater,  but 
he  cannot  keep  his  foolish  counsel.  A  broken 
complexion,  a  swinish  look,  ungenerous  acts 
and  the  want  of  due  knowledge,  —  all  blab. 
Can  a  cook,  a  Chiffinch,  an  lachimo  be  mistaken 
for  Zeno  or  Paul?  Confucius  exclaimed, — 
"  How  can  a  man  be  concealed  ?  How  can  a 
man  be  concealed  ?  " 

On  the  other  hand,  the  hero  fears  not  that 
if  he  withhold  the  avowal  of  a  just  and  brave 


160  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

act  it  will  go  unwitnessed  and  unloved.  One 
knows  it,  —  himself, —  and  is  pledged  by  it 
to  sweetness  of  peace  and  to  nobleness  of  aim 
which  will  prove  in  the  end  a  better  proclama- 
tion of  it  than  the  relating  of  the  incident.  Vir- 
tue is  the  adherence  in  action  to  the  nature  of 
things  and  the  nature  of  things  makes  it  pre- 
valent. It  consists  in  a  perpetual  substitution 
of  being  for  seeming,  and  with  sublime  pro- 
priety God  is  described  as  saying,  I  AM. 

The  lesson  which  these  observations  convey 
is,  Be,  and  not  seem.  Let  us  acquiesce.  Let  us 
take  our  bloated  nothingness  out  of  the  path 
of  the  divine  circuits.  Let  us  unlearn  our  wis- 
dom of  the  world.  Let  us  lie  low  in  the  Lord's 
power  and  learn  that  truth  alone  makes  rich  and 
great. 

If  you  visit  your  friend,  why  need  you  apolo- 
gize for  not  having  visited  him,  and  waste  his 
time  and  deface  your  own  act  ?  Visit  him  now. 
Let  him  feel  that  the  highest  love  has  come  to 
see  him,  in  thee  its  lowest  organ.  Or  why  need 
you  torment  yourself  and  friend  by  secret  self- 
reproaches  that  you  have  not  assisted  him  or 
complimented  him  with  gifts  and  salutations 
heretofore  ?  Be  a  gift  and  a  benediction.  Shine 
with  real  light  and  not  with  the  borrowed  re* 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  161 

flection  of  gifts.  Common  men  are  apologies 
for  men  ;  they  bow  the  head,  excuse  themselves 
with  prolix  reasons,  and  accumulate  appearances 
because  the  substance  is  not. 

We  are  full  of  these  superstitions  of  sense, 
the  worship  of  magnitude.  We  call  the  poet 
inactive,  because  he  is  not  a  president,  a  mer- 
chant, or  a  porter.  We  adore  an  institution, 
and  do  not  see  that  it  is  founded  on  a  thought 
which  we  have.  But  real  action  is  in  silent  mo- 
ments. The  epochs  of  our  life  are  not  in  the 
visible  facts  of  our  choice  of  a  calling,  our  mar- 
riage, our  acquisition  of  an  office,  and  the  like, 
but  in  a  silent  thought  by  the  wayside  as  we 
walk  ;  in  a  thought  which  revises  our  entire 
manner  of  life  and  says,  —  *  Thus  hast  thou 
done,  but  it  were  better  thus.'  And  all  our  after 
years,  like  menials,  serve  and  wait  on  this,  and 
according  to  their  ability  execute  its  will.  This 
revisal  or  correction  is  a  constant  force,  which, 
as  a  tendency,  reaches  through  our  lifetime. 
The  object  of  the  man,  the  aim  of  these  mo- 
ments, is  to  make  daylight  shine  through  him, 
to  suffer  the  law  to  traverse  his  whole  being 
without  obstruction,  so  that  on  what  point  so- 
ever of  his  doing  your  eye  falls  it  shall  report 
truly  of  his  character,  whether  it  be  his  diet,  his 


162  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

house,  his  religious  forms,  his  society,  his  mirth, 
his  vote,  his  opposition.  Now  he  is  not  homo- 
geneous, but  heterogeneous,  and  the  ray  does 
not  traverse ;  there  are  no  thorough  lights,  but 
the  eye  of  the  beholder  is  puzzled,  detecting 
many  unlike  tendencies  and  a  life  not  yet  at 
one. 

Why  should  we  make  it  a  point  with  our 
false  modesty  to  disparage  that  man  we  are  and 
that  form  of  being  assigned  to  us  ?  A  good 
man  is  contented.  I  love  and  honor  Epami- 
nondas,  but  I  do  not  wish  to  be  Epaminondas. 
I  hold  it  more  just  to  love  the  world  of  this 
hour  than  the  world  of  his  hour.  Nor  can  you, 
if  I  am  true,  excite  me  to  the  least  uneasiness 

(by  saying,  *  He  acted  and  thou  sittest  still.'  I 
see  action  to  be  good,  when  the  need  is,  and 
sitting  still  to  be  also  good.  Epaminondas,  if 
he  was  the  man  I  take  him  for,  would  have  sat 
still  with  joy  and  peace,  if  his  lot  had  been  mine. 
Heaven  is  large,  and  affords  space  for  all  modes 
of  love  and  fortitude.  Why  should  we  be  busy- 
bodies  and  superserviceable  ?  Action  and  inac- 
tion are  alike  to  the  true.  One  piece  of  the  tree 
is  cut  for  a  weathercock  and  one  for  the  sleeper 
of  a  bridge ;  the  virtue  of  the  wood  is  apparent 
in  both. 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  163 

I  desire  not  to  disgrace  the  soul.  The  fact 
that  I  am  here  certainly  shows  me  that  the  soul 
had  need  of  an  organ  here.  Shall  I  not  assume 
the  post  ?  Shall  I  skulk  and  dodge  and  duck 
with  my  unseasonable  apologies  and  vain  mod- 
esty and  imagine  my  being  here  impertinent  ? 
less  pertinent  than  Epaminondas  or  Homer  be- 
ing there  ?  and  that  the  soul  did  not  know  its 
own  needs  ?  Besides,  without  any  reasoning  on 
the  matter,  I  have  no  discontent.  The  good 
soul  nourishes  me  and  unlocks  new  magazines 
of  power  and  enjoyment  to  me  every  day.  I 
will  not  meanly  decline  the  immensity  of  good, 
because  I  have  heard  that  it  has  come  to  others 
in  another  shape. 

Besides,  why  should  we  be  cowed  by  the 
name  of  Action?  'T  is  a  trick  of  the  senses, — 
no  more.  We  know  that  the  ancestor  of  every 
action  is  a  thought.  The  poor  mind  does  not 
seem  to  itself  to  be  any  thing  unless  it  have  an 
outside  badge,  —  some  Gentoo  diet,  or  Quaker 
coat,  or  Calvinistic  prayer-meeting,  or  philan- 
thropic society,  or  a  great  donation,  or  a  high 
office,  or,  any  how,  some  wild  contrasting  action 
to  testify  that  it  is  somewhat.  The  rich  mind 
lies  in  the  sun  and  sleeps,  and  is  Nature.  To 
think  is  to  act. 


164  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

Let  us,  if  we  must  have  great  actions,  make 
our  own  so.  All  action  is  of  an  infinite  elasti- 
city, and  the  least  admits  of  being  inflated  with 
the  celestial  air  until  it  eclipses  the  sun  and 
moon.  Let  us  seek  one  peace  by  fidelity.  Let 
me  heed  my  duties.  Why  need  I  go  gadding 
into  the  scenes  and  philosophy  of  Greek  and 
Italian  history  before  I  have  justified  myself  to 
my  benefactors?  How  dare  I  read  Washing- 
ton's campaigns  when  I  have  not  answered  the 
letters  of  my  own  correspondents  ?  Is  not  that 
a  just  objection  to  much  of  our  reading  ?  It  is 
a  pusillanimous  desertion  of  our  work  to  gaze 
after  our  neighbors.  It  is  peeping.  Byron  says 
of  Jack  Bunting, — 

He  knew  not  what  to  say,  and  so  he  swore. ' 

I  may  say  it  of  our  preposterous  use  of  books, 
—  He  knew  not  what  to  do,  and  so  he  read.  I 
can  think  of  nothing  to  fill  my  time  with,  and 
I  find  the  Life  of  Brant.  It  is  a  very  extrava- 
gant compliment  to  pay  to  Brant,  or  to  General 
Schuyler,  or  to  General  Washington.  My  time 
should  be  as  good  as  their  time,  —  my  facts,  my 
net  of  relations,  as  good  as  theirs,  or  either  of 
theirs.  Rather  let  me  do  my  work  so  well  that 
other  idlers  if  they  choose  may  compare  my  tex- 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS  165 

ture  with  the  texture  of  these  and  find  it  identi- 
cal with  the  best. 

This  over-estimate  of  the  possibilities  of  Paul 
and  Pericles,  this  under-estimate  of  our  own, 
comes  from  a  neglect  of  the  fact  of  an  identical 
nature.  Bonaparte  knew  but  one  merit,  and  re- 
warded in  one  and  the  same  way  the  good  sol- 
dier, the  good  astronomer,  the  good  poet,  the 
good  player.  The  poet  uses  the  names  of  Caesar, 
of  Tamerlane,  of  Bonduca,1  of  Belisarius ;  the 
painter  uses  the  conventional  story  of  the  Vir- 
gin Mary,  of  Paul,  of  Peter.  He  does  not  there- 
fore defer  to  the  nature  of  these  accidental  men, 
of  these  stock  heroes.  If  the  poet  write  a  true 
drama,  then  he  is  Caesar,  and  not  the  player  of 
Caesar :  then  the  selfsame  strain  of  thought, 
emotion  as  pure,  wit  as  subtle,  motions  as  swift, 
mounting,  extravagant,  and  a  heart  as  great,  self- 
sufficing,  dauntless,  which  on  the  waves  of  its 
love  and  hope  can  uplift  all  that  is  reckoned  solid 
and  precious  in  the  world,  —  palaces,  gardens, 
money,  navies,  kingdoms,  —  marking  its  own 
incomparable  worth  by  the  slight  it  casts  on 
these  gauas  of  men  ;  —  these  all  are  his,  and  by 
the  power  of  these  he  rouses  the  nations.  Let 
a  man  believe  in  God,  and  not  in  names  and 
places  and  persons.  Let  the  great  soul  incar* 


166  SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

nated  in  some  woman's  form,  poor  and  sad  and 
single,  in  some  Dolly  or  Joan,  go  out  to  service 
and  sweep  chambers  and  scour  floors,  and  its 
effulgent  daybeams  cannot  be  muffled  or  hid, 
but  to  sweep  and  scour  will  instantly  appear 
supreme  and  beautiful  actions,  the  top  and  radi- 
ance of  human  life,  and  all  people  will  get  mops 
and  brooms;  until,  lo  !  suddenly  the  great  soul 
has  enshrined  itself  in  some  other  form  and  done 
some  other  deed,  and  that  is  now  the  flower  and 
head  of  all  living  nature.1 

We  are  the  photometers,  we  the  irritable  gold- 
leaf  and  tinfoil  that  measure  the  accumulations 
of  the  subtle  element.  We  know  the  authentic 
effects  of  the  true  fire  through  every  one  of  its 
million  disguises. 


V 
LOVE 


e I  WAS  as  a  gem  concealed; 
Me  my  burning  ray  revealed." 

Koran.' 


LOVE 

EVERY  promise  of  the  soul  has  innumer- 
able fulfilments ;  each  of  its  joys  ripens 
into  a  new  want.  Nature,  uncontainable,  flow- 
ing, forelooking,  in  the  first  sentiment  of  kind- 
ness anticipates  already  a  benevolence  which 
shall  lose  all  particular  regards  in  its  general 
light.  The  introduction  to  this  felicity  is  in  a 
private  and  tender  relation  of  one  to  one,  which 
is  the  enchantment  of  human  life;  which,  like 
a  certain  divine  rage  and  enthusiasm,  seizes  on 
man  at  one  period  and  works  a  revolution  in  his 
mind  and  body ;  unites  him  to  his  race,  pledges 
him  to  the  domestic  and  civic  relations,  carries 
him  with  new  sympathy  into  nature,  enhances 
the  power  of  the  senses,  opens  the  imagination, 
adds  to  his  character  heroic  and  sacred  attri- 
butes, establishes  marriage  and  gives  perma- 
nence to  human  society. 

The  natural  association  of  the  sentiment  of 
love  with  the  heyday  of  the  blood  seems  to  re- 
quire that  in  order  to  portray  it  in  vivid  tints, 
which  every  youth  and  maid  should  confess  to 
be  true  to  their  throbbing  experience,  one  must 
not  be  too  old.  The  delicious  fancies  of  youth 


170  LOVE 

reject  the  least  ''avor  of  a  mature  philosophy, 
as  chilling  with  age  and  pedantry  their  purple 
bloom.  And  therefore  I  know  I  incur  the  im- 
putation of  unnecessary  hardness  and  stoicism 
from  those  who  compose  the  Court  and  Par- 
liament of  Love.  But  from  these  formidable 
censors  I  shall  appeal  to  my  seniors.  For  it  is 
to  be  considered  that  this  passion  of  which  we 
speak,  though  it  begin  with  the  young,  yet  for- 
sakes not  the  old,  or  rather  suffers  no  one  who 
is  its  servant  to  grow  old,  but  makes  the  aged 
participators  of  it  not  less  than  the  tender  maiden, 
though  in  a  different  and  nobler  sort.  For  it  is 
a  fire  that  kindling  its  first  embers  in  the  narrow 
nook  of  a  private  bosom,  caught  from  a  wander- 
ing spark  out  of  another  private  heart,  glows 
and  enlarges  until  it  warms  and  beams  upon 
multitudes  of  men  and  women,  upon  the  univer- 
sal heart  of  all,  and  so  lights  up  the  whole  world 
and  all  nature  with  its  generous  flames.  It  mat- 
ters not  therefore  whether  we  attempt  to  de- 
scribe the  passion  at  twenty,  thirty,  or  at  eighty 
years.  He  who  paints  it  at  the  first  period  will 
lose  some  of  its  later,  he  who  paints  it  at  the 
last,  some  of  its  earlier  traits.  Only  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  by  patience  and  the  Muses'  aid  we 
may  attain  to  that  inward  view  of  the  law  which 


LOVE  171 

shall  describe  a  truth  ever  young  and  beautiful, 
so  central  that  it  shall  commend  itself  to  the  eye 
at  whatever  angle  beholden. 

And  the  first  condition  is  that  we  must  leave 
a  too  close  and  lingering  adherence  to  facts,  and 
study  the  sentiment  as  it  appeared  in  hope,  and 
not  in  history.  For  each  man  sees  his  own  life 
defaced  and  disfigured,  as  the  life  of  man  is  not 
to  his  imagination.  Each  man  sees  over  his  own 
experience  a  certain  stain  of  error,  whilst  that 
of  other  men  looks  fair  and  ideal.  Let  any 
man  go  back  to  those  delicious  relations  which 
make  the  beauty  of  his  life,  which  have  given 
him  sincerest  instruction  and  nourishment,  he 
will  shrink  and  moan.  Alas  !  I  know  not  why, 
but  infinite  compunctions  embitter  in  mature 
life  the  remembrances  of  budding  joy,  and  cover 
every  beloved  name.1  Every  thing  is  beautiful 
seen  from  the  point  of  the  intellect,  or  as  truth. 
But  all  is  sour  if  seen  as  experience.  Details 
are  melancholy ;  the  plan  is  seemly  and  noble. 
In  the  actual  world — the  painful  kingdom  of 
time  and  place  —  dwell  care  and  canker  and  fear. 
With  thought,  with  the  ideal,  is  immortal  hilar- 
ity, the  rose  of  joy.  Round  it  all  the  Muses 
sing.  But  grief  cleaves  to  names  and  persons  and 
the  partial  interests  of  to-day  and  yesterday. 


172  LOVE 

The  strong  bent  of  nature  is  seen  in  the  pro* 
portion  which  this  topic  of  personal  relations 
usurps  in  the  conversation  of  society.  What  do 
we  wish  to  know  of  any  worthy  person  so  much 
as  how  he  has  sped  in  the  history  of  this  senti- 
ment ?  What  books  in  the  circulating  library 
circulate  ?  How  we  glow  over  these  novels  of 
passion,  when  the  story  is  told  with  any  spark 
of  truth  and  nature !  And  what  fastens  atten- 
tion, in  the  intercourse  of  life,  like  any  passage 
betraying  affection  between  two  parties  ?  Per- 
haps we  never  saw  them  before  and  never  shall 
meet  them  again.  But  we  see  them  exchange  a 
glance  or  betray  a  deep  emotion,  and  we  are  no 
longer  strangers.  We  understand  them  and  take 
the  warmest  interest  in  the  development  of  the 
romance.  All  mankind  love  a  lover.  The  ear- 
liest demonstrations  of  complacency  and  kind- 
ness are  nature's  most  winning  pictures.1  It  is 
the  dawn  of  civility  and  grace  in  the  coarse  and 
rustic.  The  rude  village  boy  teases  the  girls 
about  the  school-house  door ;  —  but  to-day  he 
comes  running  into  the  entry  and  meets  one 
fair  child  disposing  her  satchel ;  he  holds  her 
books  to  help  her,  and  instantly  it  seems  to 
him  as  if  she  removed  herself  from  him  infi- 
nitely, and  was  a  sacred  precinct.  Among  the 


LOVE  173 

throng  of  girls  he  runs  rudely  enough,  but  one 
alone  distances  him  ;  and  these  two  little  neigh- 
bors, that  were  so  close  just  now,  have  learned 
to  respect  each  other's  personality.  Or  who  can 
avert  his  eyes  from  the  engaging,  half-artful, 
half-artless  ways  of  school-girls  who  go  into  the 
country  shops  to  buy  a  skein  of  silk  or  a  sheet 
of  paper,  and  talk  half  an  hour  about  nothing 
with  the  broad-faced,  good-natured  shop-boy. 
In  the  village  they  are  on  a  perfect  equality, 
which  love  delights  in,  and  without  any  coquetry 
the  happy,  affectionate  nature  of  woman  flows 
out  in  this  pretty  gossip.  The  girls  may  have 
little  beauty,  yet  plainly  do  they  establish  be- 
tween them  and  the  good  boy  the  most  agree- 
able, confiding  relations ;  what  with  their  fun 
and  their  earnest,  about  Edgar  and  Jonas  and 
Almira,  and  who  was  invited  to  the  party,  and 
who  danced  at  the  dancing-school,  and  when 
the  singing-school  would  begin,  and  other  no- 
things concerning  which  the  parties  cooed.  By 
and  by  that  boy  wants  a  wife,  and  very  truly 
and  heartily  will  he  know  where  to  find  a  sin- 
cere and  sweet  mate,  without  any  risk  such  as 
Milton  deplores  as  incident  to  scholars  and 
great  men. 

I  have  been  told  that  in  some  public  dis- 


174  LOVE 

courses  of  mine  my  reverence  for  the  intellect 
has  made  me  unjustly  cold  to  the  personal  rela- 
tions. But  now  I  almost  shrink  at  the  remem- 
brance of  such  disparaging  words.  For  persons 
are  love's  world,  and  the  coldest  philosopher 
cannot  recount  the  debt  of  the  young  soul  wan- 
dering here  in  nature  to  the  power  of  love,  with- 
out being  tempted  to  unsay,  as  treasonable  to 
nature,  aught  derogatory  to  the  social  instincts. 
For  though  the  celestial  rapture  falling  out  of 
heaven  seizes  only  upon  those  of  tender  age, 
and  although  a  beauty  overpowering  all  analysis 
or  comparison  and  putting  us  quite  beside  our- 
selves we  can  seldom  see  after  thirty  years,  yet 
the  remembrance  of  these  visions  outlasts  all 
other  remembrances,  and  is  a  wreath  of  flowers 
on  the  oldest  brows.  But  here  is  a  strange  fact ; 
it  may  seem  to  many  men,  in  revising  their  ex- 
perience, that  they  have  no  fairer  page  in  their 
life's  book  than  the  delicious  memory  of  some 
passages  wherein  affection  contrived  to  give  a 
witchcraft,  surpassing  the  deep  attraction  of  its 
own  truth,  to  a  parcel  of  accidental  and  trivial 
circumstances.  In  looking  backward  they  may 
find  that  several  things  which  were  not  the 
charm  have  more  reality  to  this  groping  mem- 
ory than  the  charm  itself  which  embalmed  them. 


LOVE  175 

But  be  our  experience  in  particulars  what  it 
may,  no  man  ever  forgot  the  visitations  of  that 
pow^r  to  his  heart  and  brain,  which  created 
all  things  anew ;  which  was  the  dawn  in  him 
of  music,  poetry  and  art ;  which  made  the  face 
of  nature  radiant  with  purple  light,  the  morn- 
ing and  the  night  varied  enchantments ;  when  a 
single  tone  of  one  voice  could  make  the  heart 
bound,  and  the  most  trivial  circumstance  asso- 
ciated with  one  form  is  put  in  the  amber  of 
memory  ;  when  he  became  all  eye  when  one  was 
present,  and  all  memory  when  one  was  gone  ; 
when  the  youth  becomes  a  watcher  of  win- 
dows and  studious  of  a  glove,  a  veil,  a  ribbon, 
or  the  wheels  of  a  carriage  ;  when  no  place  is 
too  solitary  and  none  too  silent  for  him  who 
has  richer  company  and  sweeter  conversation  in 
his  new  thoughts  than  any  old  friends,  though 
best  and  purest,  can  give  him  ;  for  the  figures, 
the  motions,  the  words  of  the  beloved  object 
are  not,  like  other  images,  written  in  water,  but, 
as  Plutarch  said,  "  enamelled  in  fire,"  and  make 
the  study  of  midnight :  — 

"Thou  art  not  gone  being  gone,  where'er  thou  art, 
Thou  leav'st  in  him  thy  watchful  eyes,  in  him  thy  loving 
heart."  ' 

In  the  noon  and  the  afternoon  of  life  we  still 


176  LOVE 

throb  at  the  recollection  of  days  when  happiness 
was  not  happy  enough,  but  must  be  drugged 
with  the  relish  of  pain  and  fear ;  for  he  touched 
the  secret  of  the  matter  who  said  of  love,  — 

"  All  other  pleasures  are  not  worth  its  pains  : "  * 

and  when  the  day  was  not  long  enough,  but  the 
night  too  must  be  consumed  in  keen  recollec- 
tions; when  the  head  boiled  all  night  on  the  pil- 
low with  the  generous  deed  it  resolved  on ;  when 
the  moonlight  was  a  pleasing  fever  and  the  stars 
were  letters  and  the  flowers  ciphers  and  the  air 
was  coined  into  song ;  when  all  business  seemed 
an  impertinence,  and  all  the  men  and  women 
running  to  and  fro  in  the  streets,  mere  pictures. 
The  passion  rebuilds  the  world  for  the  youth. 
It  makes  all  things  alive  and  significant.  Nature 
grows  conscious.  Every  bird  on  the  boughs  of 
the  tree  sings  now  to  his  heart  and  soul.  The 
notes  are  almost  articulate.  The  clouds  have 
faces  as  he  looks  on  them.  The  trees  of  the 
forest,  the  waving  grass  and  the  peeping  flow- 
ers have  grown  intelligent ;  and  he  almost  fears 
to  trust  them  with  the  secret  which  they  seem 
to  invite.  Yet  nature  soothes  and  sympathizes. 
In  the  green  solitude  he  finds  a  dearer  home 
than  with  men  :  — 


LOVE  177 

Sf  Fountain-heads  and  pathless  groves, 
Places  which  pale  passion  loves, 
Moonlight  walks,  when  all  the  fowls 
Are  safely  housed,  save  bats  and  owls, 
A  midnight  bell,  a  passing  groan,  — 
These  are  the  sounds  we  feed  upon."  * 

Behold  there  in  the  wood  the  fine  madman  ! 
He  is  a  palace  of  sweet  sounds  and  sights  ;  he 
dilates  ;  he  is  twice  a  man  ;  he  walks  with  arms 
akimbo ;  he  soliloquizes ;  he  accosts  the  grass 
and  the  trees ;  he  feels  the  blood  of  the  violet, 
the  clover  and  the  lily  in  his  veins ;  and  he 
talks  with  the  brook  that  wets  his  foot.* 

The  heats  that  have  opened  his  perceptions 
of  natural  beauty  have  made  him  love  music 
and  verse.  It  is  a  fact  often  observed,  that  men 
have  written  good  verses  under  the  inspiration 
of  passion  who  cannot  write  well  under  any 
other  circumstances. 

The  like  force  has  the  passion  over  all  his 
nature.  It  expands  the  sentiment;  it  makes 
the  clown  gentle  and  gives  the  coward  heart. 
Into  the  most  pitiful  and  abject  it  will  infuse  a 
heart  and  courage  to  defy  the  world,  so  only  it 
have  the  countenance  of  the  beloved  object.  In 
giving  him  to  another  it  still  more  gives  him  to 
himself.  He  is  a  new  man,  with  new  percep- 


1 78  LOVE 

tions,  new  and  keener  purposes,  and  a  religious 
solemnity  of  character  and  aims.  He  does  not 
longer  appertain  to  his  family  and  society ;  he 
is  somewhat ;  he  is  a  person ;  he  is  a  soul. 

And  here  let  us  examine  a  little  nearer  the 
nature  of  that  influence  which  is  thus  potent 
over  the  human  youth.  Beauty,  whose  revela- 
tion to  man  we  now  celebrate,  welcome  as  the 
sun  wherever  it  pleases  to  shine,  which  pleases 
everybody  with  it  and  with  themselves,  seems 
sufficient  to  itself.  The  lover  cannot  paint  his 
maiden  to  his  fancy  poor  and  solitary.  Like  a 
tree  in  flower,  so  much  soft,  budding,  informing 
loveliness  is  society  for  itself;  and  she  teaches 
his  eye  why  Beauty  was  pictured  with  Loves 
and  Graces  attending  her  steps.  Her  existence 
makes  the  world  rich.  Though  she  extrudes  all 
other  persons  from  his  attention  as  cheap  and 
unworthy,  she  indemnifies  him  by  carrying  out 
her  own  being  into  somewhat  impersonal,  large, 
mundane,  so  that  the  maiden  stands  to  him  for 
a  representative  of  all  select  things  and  virtues. 
For  that  reason  the  lover  never  sees  personal 
resemblances  in  his  mistress  to  her  kindred  or 
to  others.  His  friends  find  in  her  a  likeness  to 
her  mother,  or  her  sisters,  or  to  persons  not 
of  her  blood.  The  lover  sees  no  resemblance 


LOVE  179 

except  to  summer  evenings  and  diamond  morn- 
ings, to  rainbows  and  the  song  of  birds. 

The  ancients  called  beauty  the  flowering  of 
virtue.1  Who  can  analyze  the  nameless  charm 
which  glances  from  one  and  another  face  and 
form  ?  We  are  touched  with  emotions  of  ten- 
derness and  complacency,  but  we  cannot  find 
whereat  this  dainty  emotion,  this  wandering 
gleam,  points.  It  is  destroyed  for  the  imagina- 
tion by  any  attempt  to  refer  it  to  organization. 
Nor  does  it  point  to  any  relations  of  friendship 
or  love  known  and  described  in  society,  but,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  to  a  quite  other  and  unattaina- 
ble sphere,  to  relations  of  transcendent  delicacy 
and  sweetness,  to  what  roses  and  violets  hint 
and  foreshow.  We  cannot  approach  beauty.  Its 
nature  is  like  opaline  doves'-neck  lustres,  hov- 
ering and  evanescent.  Herein  it  resembles  the 
most  excellent  things,  which  all  have  this  rain- 
bow character,  defying  all  attempts  at  appropri- 
ation and  use.  What  else  did  Jean  Paul  Richter 
signify,  when  he  said  to  music,  "  Away  !  away ! 
thou  speakest  to  me  of  things  which  in  all  my 
endless  life  I  have  not  found  and  shall  not  find." 
The  same  fluency  may  be  observed  in  every 
work  of  the  plastic  arts.  The  statue  is  then 
beautiful  when  it  begins  to  be  incomprehensible, 


i8o  LOVE 

when  it  is  passing  out  of  criticism  and  can  no 
longer  be  defined  by  compass  and  measuring- 
wand,  but  demands  an  active  imagination  to  go 
with  it  and  to  say  what  it  is  in  the  act  of  do- 
ing. The  god  or  hero  of  the  sculptor  is  always 
represented  in  a  transition  from  that  which  is 
representable  to  the  senses,  to  that  which  is  not. 
Then  first  it  ceases  to  be  a  stone.  The  same 
remark  holds  of  painting.  And  of  poetry  the 
success  is  not  attained  when  it  lulls  and  satisfies, 
but  when  it  astonishes  and  fires  us  with  new 
endeavors  after  the  unattainable.  Concerning 
it  Landor  inquires  "  whether  it  is  not  to  be 
referred  to  some  purer  state  of  sensation  and 
existence." 

In  like  manner,  personal  beauty  is  then  first 
charming  and  itself  when  it  dissatisfies  us  with 
any  end ;  when  it  becomes  a  story  without  an 
end ;  when  it  suggests  gleams  and  visions  and 
not  earthly  satisfactions  ;  when  it  makes  the  be- 
holder feel  his  unworthiness ;  when  he  cannot 
feel  his  right  to  it,  though  he  were  Csesar ;  he 
cannot  feel  more  right  to  it  than  to  the  firma- 
ment and  the  splendors  of  a  sunset. 

Hence  arose  the  saying,  "  If  I  love  you,  what 
is  that  to  you  ?  "  We  say  so  because  we  feel  that 
what  we  love  is  not  in  your  will,  but  above  it.  It 


LOVE  181 

is  not  you,  but  your  radiance.  It  is  that  which 
you  know  not  in  yourself  and  can  never  know. 

This  agrees  well  with  that  high  philosophy  of 
Beauty  which  the  ancient  writers  delighted  in ; 
for  they  said  that  the  soul  of  man,  embodied 
here  on  earth,  went  roaming  up  and  down  in 
quest  of  that  other  world  of  its  own  out  of  which 
it  came  into  this,  but  was  soon  stupefied  by  the 
light  of  the  natural  sun,  and  unable  to  see  any 
other  objects  than  those  of  this  world,  which  are 
but  shadows  of  real  things.1  Therefore  the  Deity 
sends  the  glory  of  youth  before  the  soul,  that  it 
may  avail  itself  of  beautiful  bodies  as  aids  to  its 
recollection  of  the  celestial  good  and  fair ;  and 
the  man  beholding  such  a  person  in  the  female 
sex  runs  to  her  and  finds  the  highest  joy  in 
contemplating  the  form,  movement  and  intelli- 
gence of  this  person,  because  it  suggests  to  him 
the  presence  of  that  which  indeed  is  within  the 
beauty,  and  the  cause  of  the  beauty. 

If  however,  from  too  much  conversing  with 
material  objects,  the  soul  was  gross,  and  mis- 
placed its  satisfaction  in  the  body,  it  reaped 
nothing  but  sorrow  ;  body  being  unable  to  ful- 
fil the  promise  which  beauty  holds  out ;  but  if. 
accepting  the  hint  of  these  visions  and  sugges- 
tions which  beauty  makes  to  his  mind,  the  soul 


182  LOVE 

passes  through  the  body  and  falls  to  admire 
strokes  of  character,  and  the  lovers  contemplate 
one  another  in  their  discourses  and  their  actions, 
then  they  pass  to  the  true  palace  of  beauty, 
more  and  more  inflame  their  love  of  it,  and  by 
this  love  extinguishing  the  base '  affection,  as 
the  sun  puts  out  fire  by  shining  on  the  hearth, 
Chey  become  pure  and  hallowed.  By  conversa- 
tion with  that  which  is  in  itself  excellent,  mag- 
nanimous, lowly,  and  just,  the  lover  comes  to  a 
warmer  love  of  these  nobilities,  and  a  quicker 
apprehension  of  them.  Then  he  passes  from 
loving  them  in  one  to  loving  them  in  all,  and  so 
is  the  one  beautiful  soul  only  the  door  through 
which  he  enters  to  the  society  of  all  true  and 
pure  souls.  In  the  particular  society  of  his  mate 
he  attains  a  clearer  sight  of  any  spot,  any  taint 
which  her  beauty  has  contracted  from  this  world, 
and  is  able  to  point  it  out,  and  this  with  mutual 
joy  that  they  are  now  able,  without  offence,  to 
indicate  blemishes  and  hindrances  in  each  other, 
and  give  to  each  all  help  and  comfort  in  curing 
the  same.  And  beholding  in  many  souls  the 
traits  of  the  divine  beauty,  and  separating  in  each 
soul  that  which  is  divine  from  the  taint  which  it 
has  contracted  in  the  world,  the  lover  ascends  to 
the  highest  beauty,  to  the  love  and  knowledge 


LOVE  183 

of  the  Divinity,  by  steps  on  this  ladder  of  cre^ 
ated  souls. 

Somewhat  like  this  have  the  truly  wise  told 
us  of  love  in  all  ages.  The  doctrine  is  not  old, 
nor  is  it  new.  If  Plato,  Plutarch  and  Apuleius 
taught  it,  so  have  Petrarch,  Angelo  and  Milton. 
It  awaits  a  truer  unfolding  in  opposition  and 
rebuke  to  that  subterranean  prudence  which  pre- 
sides at  marriages  with  words  that  take  hold  of 
the  upper  world,  whilst  one  eye  is  prowling  in  the 
cellar;  so  that  its  gravest  discourse  has  a  savor 
of  hams  and  powdering-tubs.  Worst,  when  this 
sensualism  intrudes  into  the  education  of  young 
women,  and  withers  the  hope  and  affection  of 
human  nature  by  teaching  that  marriage  signi- 
fies nothing  but  a  housewife's  thrift,  and  that 
woman's  life  has  no  other  aim. 

But  this  dream  of  love,  though  beautiful,  is 
only  one  scene  in  our  play.  In  the  procession 
of  the  soul  from  within  outward,  it  enlarges  its 
circles  ever,  like  the  pebble  thrown  into  the 
pond,  or  the  light  proceeding  from  an  orb.  The 
rayToftfie  soul  alight  first  on  things  nearest,  on 
every  utensil  and  toy,  on  nurses  and  domestics, 
on  the  house  and  yard  and  passengers,  on  the 
circle  of  household  acquaintance,  on  politics  and 
g-ography  and  history.  But  things  are  ever 


1 84  LOVE 

grouping  themselves  according  to  higher  or 
more  interior  laws.  Neighborhood,  size,  num~ 
bers,  habits,  persons,  lose  by  degrees  their  power 
over  us.  Cause  and  effect,  real  affinities,  the 
longing  for  harmony  between  the  soul  and  the 
circumstance,  the  progressive,  idealizing  instinct, 
predominate  later,  and  the  step  backward  from 
the  higher  to  the  lower  relations  is  impossible. 
Thus  even  love,  which  is  the  deification  of  per- 
sons, must  become  more  impersonal  every  day. 
Of  this  at  first  it  gives  no  hint.  Little  think 
the  youth  and  maiden  who  are  glancing  at  each 
other  across  crowded  rooms  with  eyes  so  full  of 
mutual  intelligence,  of  the  precious  fruit  long 
hereafter  to  proceed  from  this  new,  quite  exter- 
nal stimulus.  The  work  of  vegetation  iegins 
first  in  the  irritability  of  the  bark  and  leaf-buds. 
From  exchanging  glances,  they  advance  to  acts 
of  courtesy,  of  gallantry,  then  to  fiery  passion,  to 
plighting  troth  and  marriage.  Passion  beholds 
its  object  as  a  perfect  unit.  The  soul  is  wholly 
embodied,  and  the  body  is  wholly  ensouled:- — ^ 

"  Her  pure  and  eloquent  blood 
Spoke  in  her  cheeks,  and  so  distinctly  wrought, 
That  one  might  almost  say  her  body  thought."  * 

Romeo,  if  dead,  should  be  cut  up  into  little  stars 
to  make  the  heavens  fine.  Life,  with  this  pair, 


LOVE  185 

has  no  other  aim,  asks  no  more,  than  Juliet, — 
than  Romeo.  Night,  day,  studies,  talents,  king- 
doms, religion,  are  all  contained  in  this  form  full 
of  soul,  in  this  soul  which  is  all  form.  The  lov- 
ers delight  in  endearments,  in  avowals  of  love, 
in  comparisons  of  their  regards.  When  alone, 
they  solace  themselves  with  the  remembered  im- 
age of  the  other.  Does  that  other  see  the  same 
star,  the  same  melting  cloud,  read  the  same 
book,  feel  the  same  emotion,  that  now  delights 
me  ? x  They  try  and  weigh  their  affection,  and 
adding  up  costly  advantages,  friends,  opportuni- 
ties, properties,  exult  in  discovering  that  will- 
ingly, joyfully,  they  would  give  all  as  a  ransom 
tor  the  beautiful,  the  beloved  head,  not  one 
hair  of  which  shall  be  harmed.  But  the  lot  of 
humanity  is  on  these  children.  Danger,  sorrow 
and  pain  arrive  to  them  as  to  all.  Love  prays. 
It  makes  covenants  with  Eternal  Power  in  be- 
half of  this  dear  mate.  The  union  which  is  thus 
effected  and  which  adds  a  new  value  to  every 
atom  in  nature  —  for  it  transmutes  every  thread 
throughout  the  whole  web  of  relation  into  a 
golden  ray,  and  bathes  the  soul  in  a  new  anc^ 
sweeter  element  —  is  yet  a  temporary  state.  Not 
always  can  flowers,  pearls,  poetry,  protestations, 
Qor  even  home  in  another  heart,  content  the 


186  LOVE 

awful  soul  that  dwells  in  clay.  It  arouses  itself 
at  last  from  these  endearments,  as  toys,  and  puts 
on  the  harness  and  aspires  to  vast  and  universal 
aims.  The  soul  which  is  in  the  soul  of  each, 
craving  a  perfect  beatitude,  detects  incongruities, 
defects  and  disproportion  in  the  behavior  of  the 
other.  Hence  arise  surprise,  expostulation  and 
pain.  Yet  that  which  drew  them  to  each  other 
was  signs  of  loveliness,  signs  of  virtue  ;  and  these 
virtues  are  there,  however  eclipsed.  They  ap- 
pear and  reappear  and  continue  to  attract ;  but 
the  regard  changes,  quits  the  sign  and  attaches 
to  the  substance.  This  repairs  the  wounded 
affection.  Meantime,  as  life  wears  on,  it  proves 
a  game  of  permutation  and  combination  of  all 
possible  positions  of  the  parties,  to  employ  all 
the  resources  of  each  and  acquaint  each  with  the 
strength  and  weakness  of  the  other.  For  it  is 
the  nature  and  end  of  this  relation,  that  they 
should  represent  the  human  race  to  each  other. 
All  that  is  in  the  world,  which  is  or  ought  to  be 
known,  is  cunningly  wrought  into  the  texture 
of  man,  of  woman  :  — 

"  The  person  love  does  to  us  fit, 

Like  manna,  has  the  taste  of  all  in  it."  x 

The  world  rolls  ;  the  circumstances  vary  every 
hour.    The  angels  that  inhabit  this  temple  of 


LOVE  187 

the  body  appear  at  the  windows,  and  the  gnomes 
and  vices  also.  By  all  the  virtues  they  are  united. 
If  there  be  virtue,  all  the  vices  are  known  as 
such  ;  they  confess  and  flee.  Their  once  flam- 
ing regard  is  sobered  by  time  in  either  breast, 
and  losing  in  violence  what  it  gains  in  extent,  it 
becomes  a  thorough  good  understanding.  They 
resign  each  other  without  complaint  to  the  good 
offices  which  man  and  woman  are  severally  ap- 
pointed to  discharge  in  time,  and  exchange  the 
passion  which  once  could  not  lose  sight  of  its 
object,  for  a  cheerful  disengaged  furtherance, 
whether  present  or  absent,  of  each  other's  de- 
signs. At  last  they  discover  that  all  which  at 
first  drew  them  together,  —  those  once  sacred 
features,  that  magical  play  of  charms,  —  wjis 
deciduous,  had  a  prospective  end,  like  the  scaf- 
folding by  which  the  house  was  built ;  and  the 
purification  of  the  intellect  and  the  heart  from 
year  to  year  is  the  real  marriage,  foreseen  and 
prepared  from  the  first,  and  wholly  above  their 
consciousness.  Looking  at  these  aims  with  which 
two  persons,  a  man  and  a  woman,  so  variously 
and  correlatively  gifted,  are  shut  up  in  one  house 
to  spend  in  the  nuptial  society  forty  or  fifty 
years,  I  do  not  wonder  at  the  emphasis  with 
which  the  heart  prophesies  this  crisis  from  early 


i88  LOVE 

infancy,  at  the  profuse  beauty  with  which  the 
instincts  deck  the  nuptial  bower,  and  nature  and 
intellect  and  art  emulate  each  other  in  the  gifts 
and  the  melody  they  bring  to  the  epithalamium. 
Thus  are  we  put  in  training  for  a  love  which 
knows  not  sex,  nor  person,  nor  partiality,  but 
which  seeks  virtue  and  wisdom  everywhere,  to 
the  end  of  increasing  virtue  and  wisdom.  We 
are  by  nature  observers,  and  thereby  learners. 
That  is  our  permanent  state.  But  we  are  often 
made  to  feel  that  our  affections  are  but  tents  of 
a  night.  Though  slowly  and  with  pain,  the  ob- 
jects of  the  affections  change,  as  the  objects  of 
thought  do.  There  are  moments  when  the  affec- 
tions rule  and  absorb  the  man  and  make  his 
happiness  dependent  on  a  person  or  persons.  But 
in  health  the  mind  is  presently  seen  again,  —  its 
overarching  vault,  bright  with  galaxies  of  immu- 
table lights,  and  the  warm  loves  and  fears,  that 
swept  over  us  as  clouds,  must  lose  their  finite 
character  and  blend  with  God,  to  attain  their 
own  perfection.  But  we  need  not  fear  that  we  can 
lose  any  thing  by  the  progress  of  the  soul.  The 
soul  may  be  trusted  to  the  end.  That  which  is 
so  beautiful  and  attractive  as  these  relations, 
must  be  succeeded  and  supplanted  only  by 
what  is  more  beautiful,  and  so  on  for  ever. 


VI 
FRIENDSHIP 

A  RUDDY  drop  of  manly  blood 

The  surging  sea  outweighs; 

The  world  uncertain  comes  and  goes, 

The  lover  rooted  stays. 

I  fancied  he  was  fled, 

And,  after  many  a  year, 

Glowed  unexhausted  kindliness 

Like  daily  sunrise  there. 

My  careful  heart  was  free  again,  — 

O  friend,  my  bosom  said, 

Through  thee  alone  the  sky  is  arched, 

Through  thee  the  rose  is  red, 

All  things  through  thee  take  nobler  form 

And  look  beyond  the  earth, 

The  mill-round  of  our  fate  appears 

A  sun- path  in  thy  worth. 

Me  too  thy  nobleness  has  taught 

To  master  my  despair  ; 

The  fountains  of  my  hidden  life 

Are  through  thy  friendship  fair. 


•••• 


FRIENDSHIP 

WE  Jhav&jLgreat  deal  more  kindness  than 
is  ever  spoken.  Maugre  all  the  selfish- 
ness that  chills  like  east  winds  the  world,  the 
whole  human  family  is  bathed  with  an  element 
of  love  like  a  fine  ether.  How  many  persons 
we  meet  in  houses,  whom  we  scarcely  speak  to, 
whom  yet  we  honor,  and  who  honor  us !  How 
many  we  see  in  the  street,  or  sit  with  in  church, 
whom,  though  silently,  we  warmly  rejoice  to  be 
with  ! '  Re.ad  the  language  of  these  wandering 
eye-beams.  The  heart  knoweth. 

The  effect  of  the  indulgence  of  this  human 
affection  is  a  certain  cordial  exhilaration.  In 
poetry  and  in  common  speech  the  emotions  of 
benevolence  and  complacency  which  are  felt 
towards  others  are  likened  to  the  material  effects 
of  fire  ;  so  swift,  or  much  more  swift,  more  ac- 
tive, more  cheering,  are  these  fine  inward  irradi- 
ations. From  the  highest  degree  of  passionate 
love  to  the  lowest  degree  of  good-will,  they 
make  the  sweetness  of  life. 

Our  intellectual  and  active  powers  increase 
with  our  affection.  The  scholar  sits  down  to 
write,  and  all  his  years  of  meditation  do  not 


I92  FRIENDSHIP 

furnish  him  with  one  good  thought  or  happy 
expression ;  but  it  is  necessary  to  write  a  letter 
to  a  friend,  —  and  forthwith  troops  of  gentle 
thoughts  invest  themselves,  on  every  hand,  with 
chosen  words.1  See,  in  any  house  where  virtue 
and  self-respect  abide,  the  palpitation  which  the 
approach  of  a  stranger  causes.  A  commended 
stranger  is  expected  and  announced,  and  an  un- 
easiness betwixt  pleasure  and  pain  invades  all 
the  hearts  of  a  household.  His  arrival  almost 
brings  fear  to  the  good  hearts  that  would  wel- 
come him.  The  house  is  dusted,  all  things  fly 
into  their  places,  the  old  coat  is  exchanged  for 
the  new,  and  they  must  get  up  a  dinner  if  they 
can.  Of  a  commended  stranger,  only  the  good 
report  is  told  by  others,  only  the  good  and  new 
is  heard  by  us.  He  stands  to  us  for  humanity/ 
He  is  what  we  wish.  Having  imagined  and 
invested  him,  we  ask  how  we  should  stand  re- 
lated in  conversation  and  action  with  such  a 
man,  and  are  uneasy  with  fear.  The  same  idea 
exalts  conversation  with  him.  We  talk  better 
than  we  are  wont.  We  have  the  nimblest  fancy, 
a  richer  memory,  and  our  dumb  devil  has  taken 
leave  for  the  time.  For  long  hours  we  can  con- 
tinue a  series  of  sincere,  graceful,  rich  com- 
munications, drawn  from  the  oldest,  secretest 


FRIENDSHIP  193 

experience,  so  that  they  who  sit  by,  of  our  own 
kinsfolk  and  acquaintance,  shall  feel  a  lively  sur- 
prise at  our  unusual  powers.  But  as  soon  as  the 
stranger  begins  to  intrude  his  partialities,  his 
definitions,  his  defects  into  the  conversation,  it 
is  all  over.  He  has  heard  the  first,  the  last 
and  best  he  will  ever  hear  from  us.  He  is  no 
stranger  now.  Vulgarity,  ignorance,  misappre- 
hension are  old  acquaintances.  Now,  when  he 
comes,  he  may  get  the  order,  the  dress  and  the 
dinner,  —  but  the  throbbing  of  the  heart  and 
the  communications  of  the  soul,  no  more. 

What  is  so  pleasant  as  these  jets  of  affection 
which  make  a  young  world  for  me  again?  What 
so  delicious  as  a  just  and  firm  encounter  of  two, 
in  a  thought,  in  a  feeling?  How  beautiful,  on 
their  approach  to  this  beating  heart,  the  steps 
and  forms  of  the  gifted  and  the  true !  The 
moment  we  indulge  our  affections,  the  earth 
is  metamorphosed;  there  is  no  winter  and  no 
night;  all  tragedies,  all  ennuis  vanish, — all  du- 
ties even;  nothing  fills  the  proceeding  eternity 
but  the  forms  all  radiant  of  beloved  persons. 
Let  the  soul  be  assured  that  somewhere  in  the 
universe  it  should  rejoin  its  friend,  and  it  would 
be  content  and  cheerful  alone  for  a  thousand 
years. 


194  FRIENDSHIP 

I  awoke  this  morning  with  devout  thanksgiv- 
ing for  my  friends,  the  old  and  the  new.  Shall 
I  not  call  God  the  Beautiful,  who  daily  showeth 
himself  so  to  me  in  his  gifts  ?  I  chide  society, 
I  embrace  solitude,  and  yet  I  am  not  so  un- 
grateful as  not  to  see  the  wise,  the  lovely  and 
the  noble-minded,  as  from  time  to  time  they  pass 
my  gate.1  Who  hears  me,  who  understands  me, 
becomes  mine, — a  possession  for  all  time.  Nor 
is  Nature  so  poor  but  she  gives  me  this  joy  sev- 
eral times,  and  thus  we  weave  social  threads  of 
our  own,  a  new  web  of  relations ;  and,  as  many 
thoughts  in  succession  substantiate  themselves, 
we  shall  by  and  by  stand  in  a  new  world  of  our 
own  creation,  and  no  longer  strangers  and  pil- 
grims in  a  traditionary  globe.  My  friends  have 
come  to  me  unsought.  The  great  God  gave 
them  to  me.  By  oldest  right,  by  the  divine  affin- 
ity of  virtue  with  itself,  I  find  them,  or  rather 
not  I,  but  the  Deity  in  me  and  in  them  derides 
and  cancels  the  thick  walls  of  individual  char- 
acter, relation,  age,  sex,  circumstance,  at  which 
he  usually  connives,  and  now  makes  many  one. 
High  thanks  I  owe  you,  excellent  lovers,  who 
carry  out  the  world  for  me  to  new  and  noble 
depths,  and  enlarge  the  meaning  of  all  my 
thoughts.  These  are  new  poetry  of  the  first 


FRIENDSHIP  195 

Bard,  —  poetry  without  stop,  —  hymn,  ode  and 
epic,  poetry  still  flowing,  Apollo  and  the  Muses 
chanting  still.  Will  these  too  separate  them- 
selves from  me  again,  or  some  of  them  ?  I  know 
not,  but  I  fear  it  not ;  for  my  relation  to  them 
is  so  pure  that  we  hold  by  simple  affinity,  and 
the  Genius  of  my  life  being  thus  social,  the  same 
affinity  will  exert  its  energy  on  whomsoever  is 
as  noble  as  these  men  and  women,  wherever  I 
may  be. 

I  confess  to  an  extreme  tenderness  of  nature 
on  this  point.  It  is  almost  dangerous  to  me  to 
"  crush  the  sweet  poison  of  misused  wine  "  '  of 
the  affections.  A  new  person  is  to  me  a  great 
event  and  hinders  me  from  sleep.  I  have  often 
had  fine  fancies  about  persons  which  have  given 
me  delicious  hours ;  but  the  joy  ends  in  the  day  ; 
it  yields  no  fruit.  Thought  is  not  born  of  it ; 
my  action  is  very  little  modified.  I  must  feel 
pride  in  my  friend's  accomplishments  as  if  they 
were  mine,  and  a  property  in  his  virtues.  I  feel 
as  warmly  when  he  is  praised,  as  the  lover  when 
he  hears  applause  of  his  engaged  maiden.  We 
over-estimate  the  conscience  of  our  friend.  His 
goodness  seems  better  than  our  goodness,  his 
nature  finer,  his  temptations  less.  Every  thing 
that  is  his, —  his  name,  his  form,  his  dress,  books 


196  FRIENDSHIP 

and  instruments,  —  fancy  enhances.  Our  own 
thought  sounds  new  and  larger  from  his  mouth.1 
Yet  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the  heart  are 
not  without  their  analogy  in  the  ebb  and  flow 
of  love.  Friendship,  like  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  is  too  good  to  be  believed.  The  lover,  be- 
holding his  maiden,  half  knows  that  she  is  not 
verily  that  which  he  worships  ;  and  in  the  golden 
hour  of  friendship  we  are  surprised  with  shades 
of  suspicion  and  unbelief.  We  doubt  that  we 
bestow  on  our  hero  the  virtues  in  which  he 
shines, and  afterwards  worship  the  form  to  which 
we  have  ascribed  this  divine  inhabitation.  In 
strictness,  the  soul  does  not  respect  men  as  it 
respects  itself.  In  strict  science  all  persons  un- 
derlie the  same  condition  of  an  infinite  remote-  ' 
ness.  Shall  we  fear  to  cool  our  love  by  mining 
for  the  metaphysical  foundation  of  this  Elysian 
temple  ?  Shall  I  not  be  as  real  as  the  things  I 
see  ?  If  I  am,  I  shall  not  fear  to  know  them 
for  what  they  are.  Their  essence  is  not  less 
beautiful  than  their  appearance,  though  it  needs 
finer  organs  for  its  apprehension.  The_root_of 
the  plant  is  not  unsightly  to  science,  though  for 
chaplets  and  festoons  we  cut  the  stem  short. 
And  I  must  hazard  the  production  of  the  bald 
fact  amidst  these  pleasing  -reveries,  though  it 


FRIENDSHIP  197 

should  prove  an  Egyptian  skull  at  our  banquet. 
A  man  who  stands  united  with  his  thought  con- 
ceives magnificently  of  himself.  He  is  conscious 
of  a  universal  success,  even  though  bought  by 
uniform  particular  failures.1  No  advantages,  no 
powers,  no  gold  or  force,  can  be  any  match  for 
him.  I  cannot  choose  but  rely  on  my  own  pov- 
erty more  than  on  your  wealth.  I  cannot  make 
your  consciousness  tantamount  to  mine.  Only 
the  star  dazzles ;  the  planet  has  a  faint,  moon- 
like  ray.  I  hear  what  you  say  of  the  admirable 
parts  and  tried  temper  of  the  party  you  praise, 
but  I  see  well  that,  for  all  his  purple  cloaks,  I 
shall  not  like  him,  unless  he  is  at  least  a  poor 
Greek  like  me.  I  cannot  deny  it,  O  friend,  that 
the  vast  shadow  of  the  Phenomenal  includes 
thee  also  in  its  pied  and  painted  immensity, — 
thee  also,compared  with  whom  all  else  is  shadow. 
Thou  art  not  Being,  as  Truth  is,  as  Justice  is, 
—  thou  art  not  my  soul,  but  a  picture  and  effigy 
of  that.  Thou  hast  come  to  me  lately,  and  al- 
ready thou  art  seizing  thy  hat  and  cloak.  Is  it 
not  that  the  soul  puts  forth  friends  as  the  tree  j 


puts  forth  leaves,  ajTdpresejTdvjJ]y_lJie__germ- 
ination  of  new  buds,  extrudes  the  old  leaf?* 


The  law^  of  nafufe  is^aTternation  for  evermore. 
Each  electrical  state  superinduces  the  opposite. 


i98  FRIENDSHIP 

The  soul  environs  itself  with  friends  that  it  may 
enter  into  a  grander  self-acquaintance  or  soli- 
tude ;  and  it  goes  alone  for  a  season  that  it  may 
exalt  its  conversation  or  society.  This  method 
betrays  itself  along  the  whole  history  of  our  per- 
sonal relations.  The  instinct  of  affection  revives 
the  hope  of  union  with  our  mates,  and  the  re- 
turning sense  of  insulation  recalls  us  from  the 
chase.  Thus  every  man  passes  his  life  in  the 
search  after  friendship,  and  if  he  should  record 
his  true  sentiment,  he  might  write  a  letter  like 
this  to  each  new  candidate  for  his  love  :  — 

DEAR  FRIEND, 

If  I  was  sure  of  thee,  sure  of  thy  capacity,  sure 
to  match  my  mood  with  thine,  I  should  never 
think  again  of  trifles  in  relation  to  thy  comings 
and  goings.  I  am  not  very  wise ;  my  moods  are 
quite  attainable,  and  I  respect  thy  genius ;  it  is 
to  me  as  yet  unfathomed;  yet  dare  I  not  pre- 
sume in  thee  a  perfect  intelligence  of  me,  and 
so  thou  art  to  me  a  delicious  torment.  Thine 
ever,  or  never. 

Yet  these  uneasy  pleasures  and  fine  pains  are 
for  curiosity  and  not  for  life.  They  are  not  to 
be  indulged.  This  is  to  weave  cobweb,  and  not 
cloth.  Our  friendships  hurry  to  short  and  poof 


FRIENDSHIP  199 

conclusions,  because  we  have  made  them  a  tex- 
ture of  wine  and  dreams,  instead  of  the  tough 
fibre  of  the  human  heart.  The  laws  of  friend- 
ship are  austere  and  eternal,  of  one  web  with 
the  laws  of  nature  and  of  morals.  But  we  have 
aimed  at  a  swift  and  petty  benefit,  to  suck  a 
sudden  sweetness.  We  snatch  at  the  slowest 
fruit  in  the  whole  garden  of  God,  which  many 
summers  and  many  winters  must  ripen.  We  seek 
our  friend  not  sacredly,  but  with  an  adulterate 
passion  which  would  appropriate  him  to  our- 
selves. In  vain.  We  are  armed  all  over  with 
subtle  antagonisms,  which,  as  soon  as  we  meet, 
begin  to  play,  and  translate  all  poetry  into  stale 
prose.1  Almost  all  people  descend  to  meet.  All 
association  must  be  a  compromise,  and,  what  is 
worst, (the  very\jlower  and  aroma  of  the  flower 
of  each  of  the  beautiful  natures  disappears  as 
they  approach  each  other^  What  a  perpetual 
disappointment  is  actual  society,  even  of  the 
virtuous  and  gifted!  After  interviews  have  been 
compassed  with  long  foresight  we  must  be  tor- 
mented presently  by  baffled  blows,  by  sudden, 
unseasonable  apathies,  by  epilepsies  of  wit  and 
of  animal  spirits,  in  the  heyday  of  friendship 
and  thought.  Our  faculties  do  not  play  us  true, 
and  both  parties  are  relieved  by  solitude. 


200  FRIENDSHIP 

I  ought  to  be  equal  to  every  relation.  It 
makes  no  difference  how  many  friends  I  have 
and  what  content  I  can  find  in  conversing  with 
each,  if  there  be  one  to  whom  I  am  not  equal. 
If  I  have  shrunk  unequal  from  one  contest,  the 
joy  I  find  in  all  the  rest  becomes  mean  and 
cowardly.  I  should  hate  myself,  if  then  I  made 
my  other  friends  my  asylum  :  — 

•*  The  valiant  warrior  famoused  for  fight, 
After  a  hundred  victories,  once  foiled, 
Is  from  the  book  of  honor  razed  quite 
And  all  the  rest  forgot  for  which  he  toiled."1 

Our  impatience  is  thus  sharply  rebuked* 
Bashfulness  and  apathy  are  a  tough  husk  in 
which  a  delicate  organization  is  protected  from 
premature  rjgening.  It  would  be  lost  if  it  knew 
itself  before  any  of  the  best  souls  were  yet  rirje 
enough  to  know  and  own  it.  Respect  the  natur- 
langsamkeit  which  hardens  the  ruby  in  a  million 
years,  and  works  in  duration  in  which  Alps  and 
Andes  come  and  go  as  rainbows.  The  good  spirit 
of  our  life  has  no  heaven  which  is  the  price  of 
rashness.  Love,  which  is  the  essence  of  God,  is 
not  for  levItyTbut  for  the  total  worth  of  man. 
Let  us  not  have  this  childish  luxury  in  our  re- 
gards, but  the  austerest  worth  ;  let  us  approach' 
our  friend  with  an  audacious  trust  in  the  truth 


FRIENDSHIP  201 

of  his  heart,  in  the  breadth,  impossible  to  be 
overturned,  of  his  foundations. 

The  attractions  of  this  subject  are  not  to  be 
resisted,  and  I  leave,  for  the  time,  all  account  of 
subordinate  social  benefit,  to  speak  of  that  select 
and  sacred  relation  which  is  a  kind  of  absolute, 
and  which  even  leaves  the  language  of  love  sus- 
picious and^common,  so  TnHdrijTthis  purer,  and 
nothing  is  so  much  divine. 

I  do  not  wish  to  treat  friendships  daintily,  but 
with  roughest  courage.  When  they  are  real, 
they  are  not  glass  threads  or  frostwork,  but 
the  solidest  thing  we  know.  For  now,  after  so 
many  ages  of  experience,  what  do  we  know  of 
nature  or  of  ourselves  ?  Not  one  step  has  man 
taken  toward  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  his 
destiny.  In  one  condemnation  of  folly  stand 
the  whole  universe  of  men.  But  the  sweet  sin- 
cerity of  joy  and  peace  which  I  draw  from  this 
alliance  with  my  brother's  soul  is  the  nut  itself 
whereof  all  nature  and  all  thought  is  but  the 
husk  and  shell.  Happy  is  the  house  that  shel-  X. 
ters  a  friend  !  It  might  well  be  built,  like  a  fes- 
tal bower  or  arch,  to  entertain  him  a  single  day. 
Happier,  if  he  know  the  solemnity  of  that  rela- 
tion and  honor  its  law  !  He  who  offers  himself 
a  candidate  for  that  covenant  comes  up,  like  an 


202  FRIENDSHIP 

Olympian,  to  the  great  games  where  the  first- 
born of  the  world  are  the  competitors.  He  pro- 
poses himself  for  contests  where  Time,  Want, 
Danger,  are  in  the  lists,  and  he  alone  is  victor 
who  has  truth  enough  in  his  constitution  to  pre- 
serve the  delicacy  of  his  beauty  from  the  wear 
and  tear  of  all  these.  The  gifts  of  fortune  may 
be  present  or  absent,  but  all  the  speed  in  that 
contest  depends  on  intrinsic  nobleness  and  the 
contempt  of  trifles.  There  are  two  elements  that 
go  to  the  composition  of  friendship,  each  so 

•'  .sovereign  that  I  can  detect  no  superiority  in 
either,  no  reason  why  either  should  be  first 

i  named.  One  is  truth.  A  friend  is  a  person  with 
whom  I  may  be  sincere.  Before  him  I  may  think 
aloud.  I  am  arrived  at  last  in  the  presence  of  a 
man  so  real  and  equal  that  I  may  drop  even  those 
undermost  garments  of  dissimulation,  courtesy, 

.-.  and  second  thought,  which  men  never  put  off, 
and  may  deal  with  him  with  the  simplicity  and 
wholeness  with  which  one  chemical  atom  meets 
another.  Sincerity  is  the  luxury  allowed,  like 
diadems  and  authority,  only  to  the  highest  rank  ; 
that  being  permitted  to  speak  truth,  as  having 
none  above  it  to  court  or  conform  unto.1  Every 
man  alone  is  sincere.  At  the  entrance  of  a  sec- 
ond  person,  hypocrisy  begins.  We  parry  and 


FRIENDSHIP  203 

fend  the  approach  of  our  fellow-man  by  com~ 
pliments,  by  gossip,  by  amusements,  by  affairs. 
We  cover  up  our  thought  from  him  under 
a  hundred  folds.  I  knew  a  man  who  under  a 
certain  religious  frenzy  cast  off  this  drapery, 
and  omitting  all  compliment  and  commonplace, 

jx  spoke  to  the  conscience  of  every  person  he  en- 
countered, and  that  with  great  insight  and  beauty. 
At  first  he  was  resisted,  and  all  men  agreed  he 
was  mad.  But  persisting — as  indeed  he  could 
not  help  doing  —  for  some  time  in  this  course, 
he  attained  to  the  advantage  of  bringing  every 
man  of  his  acquaintance  into  true  relations  with 
him.  No  man  would  think  of  speaking  falsely 
with  him,  or  of  putting  him  off  with  any  chat 
of  markets  or  reading-rooms.  But  every  man 

*X/  was  constrained,  by  so  much  sincerity  to  the 
like  plaindealing,  and  what  love  of  nature,  what 
'  poetry,  what  symbol  of  truth  he  had,  he  did 
certainly  show  him/  But  to_most  of  us  society 
shows  not  its  face  and  eye,  but  its  side  and  its 
back.  To  stand  in  true  relations  with  men  in  a 
false  age  is  worth  a  fit  of  insanity,  is  it  not?  We 
can  seldom  go  erect.  Almost  every  man  we  meet 
requires  some  civility  —  requires  to  be  humored; 
he  has  some  fame,  some  talent,  some  whim  of 
religion  or  philanthropy  in  his  head  that  is  not 


204  FRIENDSHIP 

to  be  questioned,  and  which  spoils  all  conversa- 
tion with  him.  But  a  friend  is  a  sane  man  who 
exercises  not  my  ingenuity,  but  me.  My  friend 
gives  me  entertainment  without  requiring  any 
stipulation  on  my  part.  A  friend  therefore  is  a 
sort  of  paradox  in  nature.  I  who  alone  am,  I 
who  see  nothing  in  nature  whose  existence  I  can 
affirm  with  equal  evidence  to  my  own,  behold 
now  the  semblance  of  my  being,  in  all  its  height, 
variety  and  curiosity, reiterated  in  a  foreign  form; 
so  that  a  friend  may  well  be  reckoned  the  master- 
piece of  nature. 

The  other  element  of  friendship  is  tender- 
ness. We  are  holden  to  men  by  every  sort  of 
tie','  by  blood,  by  pride,  by  fear,  by  hope,  by 
lucre,  by  lust,  by  hate,  by  admiration,  by  every 
circumstance  and  badge  and  trifle,  —  but  we  can 
scarce  believe  that  so  much  character  can  sub- 
sist in  another  as  to  draw  us  by  love.  Can 
another  be  so  blessed  and  we  so  pure  that  we 
can  offer  him  tenderness?  When  a  man  be- 
comes dear  to  me  I  have  touched  the  goal  of 
fortune.  I  find  very  little  written  directly  to 
the  heart  of  this  matter  in  books.  And  yet  I 
have  one  text  which  I  cannot  choose  but  remem- 
ber. Myauthor  'says, — "I  offer  myself  faintly 
and  bluntly  to  those  whose  I  effectually  am,  and 


FRIENDSHIP  205 

tender  myself  least  to  him  to  whom  I  am  the 
most  devoted."  I  wish  that  friendship  should 
have  feet,  as  well  as  eyes  and  eloquence.  It 
must  plant  itself  on  the  ground,  before  it  vaults 
pver  the  moon.  I  wish  it  to  be  a  little  of  a  cit- 
izen, before  it  is  quite  a  cherub.  We  chide  the 
citizen  because  he  makes  love  a  commodity.  It 
is  an  exchange  of  gifts,  of  useful  loans ;  it  is 
good  neighborhood ;  it  watches  with  the  sick ; 
if  holds  the  pall  at  the  funeral ;  and  quite  loses 
sight  of  the  delicacies  and  nobility  of  the  rela- 
tion. /But  though  we  cannot  find  the  god  under 
*-.his  disguise  of  a  sutler,  yet  on  the  other  hand 
we  cannot  forgive  the  poet  if  he  spins  his  thread 
too  fine  and  does  not  substantiate  his  romance 
by  the  mjyjmjyjDal  virtues  of  justice,  punctual- 
ity, fidelity  and  pity^Kj  hate  the  prostitution  of  , 
the  name  of  friendship  to  signify  modish  and 
worldly  alliances.  I  much  prefer  the  company 
of  ploughboys  and  tin-peddlers  to  the  silken  and 
perfumed  amity  which  celebrates  its  days  of 
encounter  by  a  frivolous  display,  by  rides  in  a 
curricle  and  dinners  at  the  best  taverns.  The 
end  of  friendship  is  a  commerce  the  most  strict 
and  homely  that  can  be  joined ;  more  strict  than 
any  of  which  we  "have  experience.  It  is  for  aid 
and  comfort  through  all  the  relations  and  passages 


206  FRIENDSHIP 

of  life  and  death./  It  is  fit  for:  serene  days  and 

graceful  gifts  and  country  rambles,  but  also  for 

,  rough  roads  and  hard  fare,  shipwreck,  poverty 

and   persecution.    It  keeps  company  with  the 

sallies  of  the  wit  and  the  trances  of  religion.   We 

are  to  dignify  to  each  other  the  daily  needs  and 

offices  of  man's  life,  and  embellish  it  by  courage, 

wisdom  and  unity.    It  should   never  fall  into 

something  usual  and  settled,  but  should  be  alert 

£  I  and  inventive  and  add  rhyme  and  reason  to  what 

-     was  drudgery. 

Friendship  may  be  said  to  require  natures  so 
rare  and  costly,  each  so  well  tempered  and  so 
happily  adapted,  and  withal  so  circumstanced 
(for  even  in  that  particular,  a  poet  says,  love 
demands  that  the  parties  be  altogether  paired), 
that  its  satisfaction  can  very  seldom  be  assured. 
It  cannot  subsist  in  its  perfection,  say  some  of 
those  who  are  learned  in  this  warm  lore  of  the 
heart,  betwixt  more  than  two.  I  am  not  quite 
so  strict  in  my  terms,  perhaps  because  I  have 
never  known  so  high  a  fellowship  as  others.  I 
please  my  imagination  more  with  a  circle  of  god- 
like men  and  women  variously  related  to  each 
other  and  between  whom  subsists  a  lofty  intelli- 
gence. But  I  find  this  law  of  one  to  one  peremp- 
tory for  conversation,  which  is  the  practice  and 


FRIENDSHIP  207 

consummation  of  friendship.1  Do  not  mix  wa- 
ters too  much.  The  best  mix  as  ill  as  good  and 
bad.  You  shall  have  very  useful  and  cheering 
-discourse  at  several  times  with  two  several  men, 
but  let  all  three  of  you  come  together  and  you 
shall  not  have  one  new  and  hearty  word.  Two 
may  talk  and  one  may  hear,  but  three  cannot 
take  part  in  a  conversation  of  the  most  sincere 
and  searching  sort.  In  good  company  there  is 
never  such  discourse  between  two,  across  the 
table,  as  takes  place  when  you  leave  them  alone. 
In  good  company  the  individuals  merge  their 
egotism  into  a  social  soul  exactly  co-extensive 
with  the  several  consciousnesses  there  present. 
No  partialities  of  friend  to  friend,  no  fondnesses 
of  brother  to  sister,  of  wife  to  husband,  are  there 
pertinent,  but  quite  otherwise.  Only  he  may 
then  speak  who  can  sail  on  the  common  thought 
of  the  party,  and  not  poorly  limited  to  his  own. 
Now  this  convention,  which  good  sense  de- 
mands, destroys  theljiigh  freedom  of  great  con- 
versation, which  requires  an  absolute  running 
of  two  souls  into  one. ) 

No  two  men  but  being  left  alone  with  each 
ofher  enter  into  simpler  relations.  Yet  it  is  af- 
finity that  determines  which  two  shall  converse. 
Unrelated  men  give  little  joy  to  each  other,  wilJ 


2o8  FRIENDSHIP 

never  suspect  the  latent  powers  of  each.  We 
talk  sometimes  of  a  great  talent  for  conversation, 
as  if  it  were  a  permanent  property  in  some  indi- 
viduals. Conversation  is  an  evanescent  relation, 
—  no  more.  A  man  is  reputed  to  have  thought 
and  eloquence;  he  cannot,  for  all  that,  say  a 
word  to  his  cousin  or  his  uncle.  They  accuse  his 
silence  with  as  much  reason  as  they  would  blame 
the  insignificance  of  a  dial  in  the  shade.  In  the 
sun  it  will  mark  the  hour.  Among  those  who 
enjoy  his  thought  he  will  regain  his  tongue. 

Friendship  requires  that  rare  mean  betwixt 
likeness 'and  unlikeness  that  piques  each  with  the 
presence  of  power  and  of  consent  in  the  other 
party.  Let  me  be  alone  to  the  end  of  the  world, 
rather  than  that  my  friend  should  overstep,  by  a 
word  or  a  look,  his  real  sympathy.  I  am  equally 
balked  by  antagonism  and  by  compliance.  Let 
him  not  cease  an  instant  to  be  himself.  The 
only  joy  I  have  in  his  being  mine,  is  that  the  not 
mine  is  mine.  I  hate,  where  I  looked  for  a  manly 
J  furtherance  or  at  least  a  manly  resistante,  to  find 
/  a  mush  of  concession.  3ettex_be_jjiettleJiij:he 
side  of  yxmr  friend  than  hisjscho.  The  condition 
which  high  friendship  demands  is  ability  to  do 
without  it./  That  high  office  requires  great  and 
sublime  parts.1  There  must  be  very  two,  before 


FRIENDSHIP  209 

there  can  be  very  one.  Let  it  be  an  alliance  of 
two  large,  formidable  natures,  mutually  beheld, 
mutually  feared,  before  yet  they  recognize  the 
deep  identity  which,  beneath  these  disparities, 
unites  them. 

He  only  is  fit  for  this  society  who  is  magnani- 
mous ;  who  is  sure  that  greatness  and  goodness 
are  always  economy ;  who  is  not  swift  to  inter- 
meddle with  his  fortunes.  Let  him  not  inter- 
meddle with  this.  Leave  to  the  diamond  its  ages 
to  grow,  nor  expect  to  accelerate  the  births  of 
the  eternal.  Friendship  demands  a  religious 
treatment.  We  talk  of  choosing  our  friends,  but 
friends  are  self-elected.  Reverence  is  a  great 
part  of  it.  Treat  your  friend  as  a  spectacle.  Of 
course  he  has  merits  that  are  not  yours,  and  that 
you  cannot  honor  if  you  must  needs  hold  him 
close  to  your  person.  Stand  aside ;  give  those 
merits  room ;  let  them  mount  and  expand.  Are 
you  the  friend  of  your  friend's  buttons,  or  of  his 
thought?  To  a  great  heart  he  will  still  be  a 
stranger  in  a  thousand  particulars,  that  he  may 
come  near  in  the  holiest  ground.  Leave  it  to 
girls  and  boys  to  regard  a  friend  as  property, 
and  to  suck  a  short  and  all-confounding  plea- 
sure, instead  of  the  noblest  benefit.1 

Let  us  buy  our  entrance  to  this  guild  by  a 


210  FRIENDSHIP 

Jong  probation.  Why  should  we  desecrate  no- 
ble and  beautiful  souls  by  intruding  on  them? 
Why  insist  on  rash  personal  relations  with  your 
friend?  Why  go  to  his  house,  or  know  his  mo- 
ther and  brother  and  sisters  ?  Why  be  visited 
by  him  at  your  own  ?  Are  these  things  mate- 
rial to  our  covenant  ?  Leave  this  touching  and 
clawing.  Let  him  be  to  me  a  spirit.  A  mes- 
sage, a  thought,  a  sincerity,  a  glance  from  him,  I 
want,  but  not  news,  nor  pottage.  I  can  get  poli- 
tics and  chat  and  neighborly  conveniences  from 
cheaper  companions.  Should  not  the  society  of 
my  friend  be  to  me  poetic,  pure,  universal  and 
great  as  nature  itself?  Ought  I  to  feel  that  our 
tie  is  profane  in  comparison  with  yonder  bar  of 
cloud  that  sleeps  on  the  horizon,  or  that  clump 
of  waving  grass  that  divides  the  brook  ?  Let  us 
not  vilify,  but  raise  it  to  that  standard.  That 
great  defying  eye,  that  scornful  beauty  of  his 
mien  and  action,  do  not  pique  yourself  on  re- 
ducing, but  rather  fortify  and  enhance.  Worship 
his  superiorities ;  wish  him  not  less  by  a  thought, 
but  hoard  and  tell  them  all.  Guard  him  as  thy 
counterpart.  Let  him  be  to  thee  for  ever  a  sort 
of  beautiful  enemy,  untamable,  devoutly  revered, 
and  not  a  trivial  conveniency  to  be  soon  out- 
grown and  cast  aside.  The  hues  of  the  opal,  the 


FRIENDSHIP  211 

light  of  the  diamond,  arc  not  to  be  seen  if  the 
eye  is  too  near.  To  my  friend  I  write  a  letter  and 
from  him  I  receive  a  letter.  That  seems  to  you 
a  little.  It  suffices  me.  It  is  a  spiritual  gift,  wor- 
thy of  him  to  give  and  of  me  to  receive.  It  pro- 
fanes nobody.  In  these  warm  lines  the  heart  will 
trust  itself,  as  it  will  not  to  the  tongue,  and  pour 
out  the  prophecy  of  a  godlier  existence  than  all 
the  annals  of  heroism  have  yet  made  good. 

Respect  so  far  the  holy  laws  of  this  fellowship 
as  not  to  prejudice  its  perfect  flower  by  your  im- 
patience for  its  opening.  ^Ve  must  be  our  own 
before  we  can  be  another's.  There  is  at  least 
this  satisfaction  in  crime,  according  to  the  Latin 
proverb;  —  you  can  speak  to  your  accomplice 
on  even  terms.  Crimen  guos  inguinat*  *guat^  To 
those  whom  we  admire  and  love,  at  first  we 
cannot.  Yet  the  least  defect  of  self-possession 
vitiates,  in  my  judgment,  the  entire  relation. 
There  can  never  be  deep  peace  between  two 
spirits,  never  mutual  respect,  until  in  their  dia- 
logue each  stands  for  the  whole  world. 

What  is  so  great  as  friendship,  let  us  carry 
with  what  grandeur  of  spirit  we  can.  Let  us  be 
silent, — so  we  may  hear  the  whisper  of  the  gods. 
Let  us  not  interfere.  Who  set  you  to  cast  about 
what  you  should  say  to  the  select  souls,  or  how 


212  FRIENDSHIP 

to  say  any  thing  to  such  ?  No  matter  how  in« 
genious,  no  matter  how  graceful  and  bland. 
There  are  innumerable  degrees  of  folly  and  wis- 
dom, and  for  you  to  say  aught  is  to  be  frivolous. 
Wait,  and  thy  heart  shall  speak.  Wait  until  the 
necessary  and  everlasting  overpowers  you,  until 
day  and  night  avail  themselves  of  your  lips.1 
The  only  reward  of  virtue  is  virtue ;  the  only 
way  to  have  a  friend  is  to  be  oner  You  shall  not 
come  nearer  a  man  by  getting  into  his  house. 
If  unlike,  his  soul  only  flees  the  faster  from  you, 
',  and  you  shall  never  catch  a  true  glance  of  his 
eye.  We  see  the  noble  afar  off  and  they  repel 
us  ;  why  should  we  intrude  ?  Late, — very  late, 
—  we  perceive  that  no  arrangements,  no  intro- 
ductions, no  consuetudes  or  habits  of  society 
would  be  of  any  avail  to  establish  us  in  such 
relations  with  them  as  we  desire,  —  but  solely 
the  uprise  of  nature  in  us  to  the  same  degree  it 
is  in  them ;  then  shall  we  meet  as  water  with 
water ;  and  if  we  should  not  meet  them  then,  we 
shall  not  want  them,  for  we  are  already  they.  In 
the  last  analysis,  love  is  only  the  reflection  of  a 
man's  own  worthiness  from  other  men.  (  Men 
have  sometimes  exchanged  names  with  their 
friends,  as  if  they  would  signify  that  in  their 
friend  each  loved  his  own  soul. 


FRIENDSHIP  213 

The  higher  the  style  we  demand  of  friendship, 
of  course  the  less  easy  to  establish  it  with  flesh 
and  blood.  We  walk  alone  in  the  world.  Friends 
such  as  we  desire  are  dreams  and  fables.  But 
a  sublime  hope  cheers  ever  the  faithful  heart, 
that  elsewhere,  in  other  regions  of  the  universal 
power,  souls  are  now  acting,  enduring  and  dar- 
ing, which  can  love  us  and  which  we  can  love.' 
We  may  congratulate  ourselves  that  the  period 
of  nonage,  of  follies,  of  blunders  and  of  shame, 
is  passed  in  solitude,  and  when  we  are  finished 
men  we  shall  grasp  heroic  hands  in  heroic  hands. 
Only  be  admonished  by  what  you  already  see, 
not  to  strike  leagues  of  friendship  with  cheap 
persons,  where  no  friendship  can  be.  Our  im-» 
patience  betrays  us  into  rash  and  foolish  alli- 
ances which  no  god  attends.  By  persisting  in 
your  path,  though  you  forfeit  the  little  you  gain 
the  great.  You  demonstrate  yourself,  so  as  to 
put  yourself  out  of  the  reach  of  false  relations, 
and  you  draw  to  you  the  first-born  of  the  world, 
—  those  rare  pilgrims  whereof  only  one  or  two 
wander  in  nature  at  once,  and  before  whom 
the  vulgar  great  show  as  spectres  and  shadows 
merely. 

It  is  foolish  to  be  afraid  of  making  our  ties 
too  spiritual,  as  if  so  we  could  lose  any  genuine 


3i4  FRIENDSHIP 

love.  Whatever  correction  of  our  popular  views 
we  make  from  insight,  nature  will  be  sure  to 
bear  us  out  in,  and  though  it  seem  to  rob  us 
of  some  joy,  will  repay  us  with  a  greater.  Let  us 
feel  if  we  will  the  absolute  insulation  of  man. 
We  are  sure  that  we  have  all  in  us.  We  go  to 
Europe,  or  we  pursue  persons,  or  we  read  books, 
in  the  instinctive  faith  that  these  will  call  it  out 
and  reveal  us  to  ourselves.  Beggars  all.  The 
persons  are  such  as  we ;  the  Europe,  an  old 
faded  garment  of  dead  persons ;  the  books,  their 
ghosts.  Let  us  drop  this  idolatry.  Let  us  give 
over  this  mendicancy.  Let  us  even  bid  our 
dearest  friends  farewell,  and  defy  them,  saying 
'Who  are  you?  Unhand  me:  I  will  be  depen- 
dent no  more.'  Ah  !  seest  thou  not,  O  bro- 
ther, that  thus  we  part  only  to  meet  again  on  a 
higher  platform,  and  only  be  more  each  other's 
because  we  are  more  our  own?  A  friend  is 
Janus-faced;  he  looks  to  the  past  and  the  future. 
Heis  the  chilcTof  all  my  foregoing  hours,  the" 
prophet  of  those  to  come,  and  the  harbinger  of 
a  greater  friend.1 

I  do  then  with  my  friends  as  I  do  with"  my 
books.  I  would  have  them  where  I  can  find 
them,  but  I  seldom  use  them./'  We  must  have 
society  on  our  own  terms,  and  admit  or  exclude 


FRIENDSHIP  215 

it  on  the  slightest  cause.  I  cannot  afford  to 
speak  much  with  my  friend.  If  he  is  great  he 
makes  me  so  great  that  I  cannot  descend  to 
converse.  In  the  great  days,  presentiments 
hover  before  me  in  the  firmament.  I  ought 
then  to  dedicate  myself  to  them.  I  go  in  that 
I  may  seize  them,  I  go  out  that  I  may  seize 
them.  I  fear  only  that  I  may  lose  them  reced- 
ing into  the  sky  in  which  now  they  are  only  a 
patch  of  brighter  light.  Then,  though  I  prize 
my  friends,  I  cannot  afford  to  talk  with  them 
and  study  their  visions,  lest  I  lose  my  own.  It 
would  indeed  give  me  a  certain  household  joy 
to  quit  this  lofty  seeking,  this  spiritual  astro- 
nomy or  search  of  stars,  and  come  down  to  warm 
sympathies  with  you ;  but  then  I  know  well  I 
shall  mourn  always  the  vanishing  of  my  mighty 
gods.  It  is  true,  next  week  I  shall  have  languid 
moods,  when  I  can  well  afford  to  occupy  my- 
self with  foreign  objects ;  then  I  shall  regret  the 
lost  literature  of  your  mind,  and  wish  you  were 
by  my  side  again.  But  if  you  come,  perhaps 
you  will  fill  my  mind  only  with  new  visions ; 
notwith  yourselfjmt  with  your  lustres,1  and  I 
shall  not  be  able  any  more  than  now  to  converse 
with  you.  So  I  will  owe  to  my  friends  this 

evanescent  intercourse.  \  I  will  receive  from  them 
\ 


216  FRIENDSHIP 

not  what  they  have  but  what  they  are.  They 
shall  give  me  that  which  properly  they  cannot 
give,  but  which  emanates  from  them.  But  they 
shall  not  hold  me  by  any  relations  less  subtik 
and  pure.1  We  will  meet  as  though  we  met  not, 
and  part  as  though  we  parted  not. 

It  has  seemed  to  me  lately  more  possible  than 
I  knew,  to  carry  a  friendship  greatly,  on  one 
side,  without  due  correspondence  on  the  other. 
Why  should  I  cumber  myself  with  regrets  that 
the  receiver  is  not  capacious  ?  It  never  troubles 
the  sun  that  some  of  his  rays  fall  wide  and  vain 
into  ungrateful  space,  and  only  a  small  part  on 
the  reflecting  planet.  Let  your  greatness  edu- 
cate the  crude  and  cold  companion.  If  he  is 
unequal,  he  will  presently  pass  away  ;  but  thou 
art  enlarged  by  thy  own  shining,  and  no  longer 
a  mate  for  frogs  and  worms,  dost  soar  and  burn 
with  the  gods  of  the  empyrean.  It  is  thought 
a  disgrace  to  love  unrequited.  But  the  great 
will  see  that  true  love  cannot  be  unrequited. 
True  love  transcends  the  unworthy  object  and 
dwells  and  broods  on  the  eternal,  and  when  the 
poor  interposed  mask  crumbles,  it  is  not  sad, 
but  feels  rid  of  so  much  earth  and  feels  its  in- 
dependency the  surer.  Yet  these  things  may 


FRIENDSHIP  217 

hardly  be  said  without  a  sort  of  treachery  to  the 
relation.  The  essence  of  friendship  is  entireness, 
a  total  magnanimity  and  trust.  It  must  not  sur- 
mise or  provide  for  infirmity.  It  treats  its  object 
as  a  god,  that  it  may  deify  both.1 


VII 

PRUDENCE 

THEME  no  poet  gladly  sung, 
Fair  to  old  and  foul  to  young ; 
Scorn  not  thou  the  love  of  parts, 
And  the  articles  of  arts. 
Grandeur  of  the  perfect  sphere 
Thanks  the  atoms  that  cohere. 


PRUDENCE 

WHAT  right  have  I  to  write  on  Prudence, 
whereof  I  have  little,  and  that  of  the 
negative  sort  ?  My  prudence  consists  in  avoid- 
ing and  going  without,  not  in  the  inventing  of 
means  and  methods,  not  in  adroit  steering,  not 
in  gentle  repairing.  I  have  no  skill  to  make 
money  spend  well,  no  genius  in  my  economy, 
and  whoever  sees  my  garden  discovers  that  I 
must  have  some  other  garden.1  Yet  I  love  facts, 
and  hate  lubricity  and  people  without  percep- 
tion. Then  I  have  the  same  title  to  write  on 
prudence  that  I  have  to  write  on  poetry  or  holi- 
ness. We  write  from  aspiration  and  antagonism, 
as  well  as  from  experience.  We  paint  those 
qualities  which  we  do  not  possess.  The  poet 
admires  the  man  of  energy  and  tactics ;  the  mer- 
chant breeds  his  son  for  the  church  or  the  bar ; 
and  where  a  man  is  not  vain  and  egotistic  you 
shall  find  what  he  has  not  by  his  praise.  More- 
over it  would  be  hardly  honest  in  me  not  to 
balance  these  fine  lyric  words  of  Love  and 
Friendship  with  words  of  coarser  sound,  and 
whilst  my  debt  to  my  senses  is  real  and  constant, 
not  to  own  it  in  passing.* 


222  PRUDENCE 

Prudence  is  the  virtue  of  the  senses.  It  is  the 
science  of  appearances.  It  is  the  outmost  action 
of  the  inward  life.  It  is  God  taking  thought  for 
oxen.  It  moves  matter  after  the  laws  of  matter. 
It  is  content  to  seek  health  of  body  by  comply- 
ing with  physical  conditions,  and  health  of  mind 
by  the  laws  of  the  intellect. 

The  world  of  the  senses  is  a  world  of  shows ; 
it  does  not  exist  for  itself,  but  has  a  symbolic 
character ;  and  a  true  prudence  or  law  of  shows 
recognizes  the  co-presence  of  other  laws  and 
knows  that  its  own  office  is  subaltern ;  knows 
that  it  is  surface  and  not  centre  where  it  works. 
Prudence  is  false  when  detached.  It  is  legitimate 
when  it  is  the  Natural  History  of  the  soul  incar- 
nate, when  it  unfolds  the  beauty  of  laws  within 
the  narrow  scope  of  the  senses.1 

There  are  all  degrees  of  proficiency  in  know- 
ledge of  the  world.  It  is  sufficient  to  our  present 
purpose  to  indicate  three.  One  class  live  to 
the  utility  of  the  symbol,  esteeming  health  and 
wealth  a  final  good.  Another  class  live  above 
this  mark  to  the  beauty  of  the  symbol,  as  the 
poet  and  artist  and  the  naturalist  and  man  of 
science.  A  third  class  live  above  the  beauty  of 
the  symbol  to  the  beauty  of  the  thing  signified; 
these  are  wise  men.  The  first  class  have  com- 


PRUDENCE  223 

mon  sense ;  the  second,  taste ;  and  the  third, 
spiritual  perception.  Once  in  a  long  time,  a 
v  man  traverses  the  whole  scale,  and  sees  and  en- 
joys the  symbol  solidly,  then  also  has  a  clear 
eye  for  its  beauty,  and  lastly,  whilst  he  pitches 
his  tent  on  this  sacred  volcanic  isle  of  nature, 
does  not  offer  to  build  houses  and  barns  thereon, 
—  reverencing  the  splendor  of  the  God  which  he 
sees  bursting  through  each  chink  and  cranny.1 

The  world  is  filled  with  the  proverbs  and  acts 
and  winkings  of  a  base  prudence,  which  is  a  de- 
votion to  matter,  as  if  we  possessed  no  other 
faculties  than  the  palate,  the  nose,  the  touch,  the 
eye  and  ear ;  a  prudence  which  adores  the  Rule 
of  Three,  which  never  subscribes,  which  never 
gives,  which  seldom  lends,  and  asks  but  one 
question  of  any  project, — Will  it  bake  bread?* 
This  is  a  disease  like  a  thickening  of  the  skin 
until  the  vital  organs  are  destroyed.  But  cul- 
ture, revealing  the  high  origin  of  the  apparent 
world  and  aiming  at  the  perfection  of  the  man 
as  the  end,  degrades  every  thing  else,  as  health 
and  bodily  life,  into  means.  It  sees  prudence 
not  to  be  a  several  faculty,  but  a  name  for  wis- 
dom and  virtue  conversing  with  the  body  and  its 
wants.  Cultivated  men  always  feel  and  speak 
so,  as  if  a  great  fortune,  the  achievement  of  a 


224  PRUDENCE 

civil  or  social  measure,  great  personal  influence, 
a  graceful  and  commanding  .address,  had  their 
value  as  proofs  of  the  energy  of  the  spirit.  If  a 
man  lose  his  balance  and  immerse  himself  in 
any  trades  or  pleasures  for  their  own  sake,  he 
may  be  a  good  wheel  or  pin,  but  he  is  not  a 
cultivated  man. 

The  spuriousprudence,  making  the  senses 
final,  is  the  god  of  sots  and  cowards,  and  is  the 
subject  of  all  comedy.  It  is  nature's  joke,  and 
therefore  literature's.  The  true  prudence  limits 
this  sensualism  by  admitting  the  knowledge  of 
an  internal  and  real  world.  This  recognition 
once  made,  the  order  of  the  world  and  the  dis- 
tribution of  affairs  and  times,  being  studied  with 
the  co-perception  of  their  subordinate  place,  will 
reward  any  degree  of  attention.  <  For  our  exist- 
ence, thus  apparently  attached  in  nature  to  the 
sun  and  the  returning  moon  and  the  periods 
which  they  mark,  —  so  susceptible  to  climate 
and  to  country,  so  alive  to  social  good  and  evil, 
so  fond  of  splendor  and  so  tender  to  hunger 
and  cold  and  debt,  —  reads  all  its  primary  les- 
sons out  of  these  books. 

Prudence  does  not  go  behind  nature  and  ask 
whence  it  is.  It  takes  the  laws  of  the  world 
whereby  man's  being  is  conditioned,  as  they  are, 


PRUDENCE  225 

and  keeps  these  laws  that  it  may  enjoy  their 
proper  good.  It_respects  space  and  time,  cli- 
mate, want,  sleep,  the  law  of  polarity,  growth 
and  death.  There  revolve,  to  give  bound  and 
period  to  his  being  on  all  sides,  the  sun  and 
moon,  the  great  formalists  in  the  sky:  here 
lies  stubborn  matter,  and  will  not  swerve  from 
its  chemical  routine.  Here  is  a  planted  globe, 
pierced  and  belted  with  natural  laws  and  fenced 
and  distributed  externally  with  civil  partitions 
and  properties  which  impose  new  restraints  on 
the  young  inhabitant. 

We  eat  of  the  bread  which  grows  in  the  field. 
We  live  by  the  air  which  blows  around  us  and 
we  are  poisoned  by  the  air  that  is  too  cold  or 
too  -  hot,  too  dry  or  too  wet.  Time,  which 
shows  so  vacant,  indivisible  and  divine  in  its 
coming,  is  slit  and  peddled  into  trifles  and  tat- 
ters. A  door  is  to  be  painted,  a  lock  to  be  re- 
paired. I  want  wood  or  oil,  or  meal  or  salt ;  the 
house  smokes,  or  I  have  a  headache ;  then  the 
tax,  and  an  affair  to  be  transacted  with  a  man 
without  heart  or  brains,  and  the  stinging  recol- 
lection of  an  injurious  or  very  awkward  word, — 
these  eat  up  the  hours.  Do  what  we  can,  summer 
will  have  its  flies  ;  if  we  walk  in  the  woods  we 
must  feed  mosquitos  ;  if  we  go  a-fishing  we  must 


226  PRUDENCE 

expect  a  wet  coat.  Then  climate  is  a  great  im- 
pediment to  idle  persons;  we  often  resolve  to 
give  up  the  care  of  the  weather,  but  still  we  re- 
gard the  clouds  and  the  rain^ 

We  are  instructed  by  these  petty  experiences 
which  usurp  the  hours  and  years.  The  hard  soil 
and  four  months  of  snow  make  the  inhabitant 
of  the  northern  temperate  zone  wiser  and  abler 
than  his  fellow  who  enjoys  the  fixed  smile  of 
the  tropics.  The  islander  may  ramble  all  day  at 
will.  At  night  he  may  sleep  on  a  mat  under  the 
moon,  and  wherever  a  wild  date-tree  grows,  na- 
ture has,  without  a  prayer  even,  spread  a  table  for 
his  morning  meal.  The  northerner  is  perforce 
a  householder.  He  must  brew,  bake,  salt  and 
preserve  his  food,  and  pile  wood  and  coal.  But 
as  it  happens  that  not  one  stroke  can  labor 
lay  to  without  some  new  acquaintance  with  na- 
ture, and  as  nature  is  inexhaustibly  significant, 
the  inhabitants  of  these  climates  have  always 
excelled  the  southerner  in  force.2  Such  is  the 
value  of  these  matters  that  a  man  who  knows 
other  things  can  never  know  too  much  of 
these.  Let  him  have  accurate  perceptions.  Let 
him,  if  he  have  hands,  handle ;  if  eyes,  mea- 
sure and  discriminate ;  let  him  accept  and  hive 
every  fact  of  chemistry,  natural  history  and  eco- 


PRUDENCE  227 

nomics ;  the  more  he  has,  the  less  is  he  will- 
ing to  spare  any  one.  (/Time  is  always  bringing 
the  occasions  that  disclose  their  value.  Some 
wisdom  comes  out  of  every  natural  and  inno- 
cent action.  'The  domestic  man,  who  loves  no 
music  so  well  as  his  kitchen  clock  and  the  airs 
which  the  logs  sing  to  him  as  they  burn  on  the 
hearth,  has  solaces  which  others  never  dream 
of.  The  application  of  means  to  ends  insures 
victory  and  the  songs  of  victory  not  less  in  a 
farm  or  a  shop  than  in  the  tactics  of  party  or 
of  war.  The  good  husband  finds  method  as 
efficient  in  the  packing  of  fire-wood  in  a  shed 
or  in  the  harvesting  of  fruits  in  the  cellar,  as  in 
Peninsular  campaigns  or  the  files  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  State.  In  the  rainy  day  he  builds  a 
work-bench,  or  gets  his  tool-box  set  in  the  cor- 
ner of  the  barn-chamber,  and  stored  with  nails, 
gimlet,  pincers,  screwdriver  and  chisel.  Herein 
he  tastes  an  old  joy  of  youth  and  childhood,  the 
cat-like  love  of  garrets,  presses  and  corn-cham- 
bers, and  of  the  conveniences  of  long  house- 
keeping. His  garden  or  his  poultry-yard  tells 
him  many  pleasant  anecdotes.  One  might  find 
argument  for  optimism  in  the  abundant  flow 
of  this  saccharine  element  of  pleasure  in  every 
suburb  and  extremity  of  the  good  world.  Let 


228  PRUDENCE 

a  man  keep  the  law,  —  any  law,  —  and  his  way 
will  be  strown  with  satisfactions.  There  is  more 
difference  in  the  quality  of  our  pleasures  than  in 
the  amount. 

On  the  other  hand,  nature  punishes  any  neg- 
lect of  prudence.  If*  you  think  the  senses  final, 
obey  their  law.  If  you  believe  in  the  soul,  do 
not  clutch  at  sensual  sweetness  before  itjsjnrj£ 
oqthe  slow  tree  of  cause  and  effect.  It  is  vine- 
gar to  the  eyes  to  deal  with  men  of  loose  and  im- 
perfect perception.  Dr.  Johnson  is  reported  to 
have  said,  —  "If  the  child  says  he  looked  out 
of  this  window,  when  he  looked  out  of  that, — 
whip  him."  Our  American  character  is  marked 
by  a  more  than  average  delight  in  accurate  per- 
ception, which  is  shown  by  the  currency  of  the 
byword,  "  No  mistake."  (But  the  discomfort 
of  unpunctuality,  of  confusion  of  thought  about 
facts,  inattention  to  the  wants  of  to-morrow,  is 
of  no  nation.  The  beautiful  laws  of  time  and 
space,  once  dislocated  by  our  inaptitude,  are 
holes  and  dens.)  If  the  hive  be  disturbed  by 
rash  and  stupid  hands,  instead  of  honey  it  will 
yield  us  bees.  ( Our  words  and  actions  to  be  fair 
must  be  timely.)  (A  gay  and  pleasant  sound  is 
the  whetting  of  the  scythe  in  the  mornings  of 
June,  yet  what  is  more  lonesome  and  sad  than 


PRUDENCE  229 

the  sound  of  a  whetstone  or  mower's  rifle  when 
it  is  too  late  in  the  season  to  make  hay  ?  Scat- 
ter-brained and  "  afternoon  "  men  spoil  much 
more  than  their  own  affair  in  spoiling  the  tem- 
per of  those  who  deal  with  them.V  I  have  seen 
a  criticism  on  some  paintings,  of  which  I  am  re- 
minded when  I  see  the  shiftless  and  unhappy 
men  who  are  not  true  to  their  senses.  The  last 
Grand  Duke  of  Weimar,  a  man  of  superior 
understanding,  said,  —  "I  have  sometimes  re- 
marked in  the  presence  of  great  works  of  art, 
and  just  now  especially  in  Dresden,  how  much 
a  certain  property  contributes  to  the  effect  which 
gives  life  to  the  figures,  and  to  the  life  an  irre- 
sistible truth.  This  property  is  the  hitting,  in 
all  the  figures  we  draw,  the  right  centre  of  grav- 
ity. I  mean  the  placing  the  figures  firm  upon 
their  feet,  making  the  hands  grasp,  and  fastening 
the  eyes  on  the  spot  where  they  should  look. 
Even  lifeless  figures,  as  vessels  and  stools  —  let 
them  be  drawn  ever  so  correctly — lose  all  effect 
so  soon  as  they  lack  the  resting  upon  their  centre 
of  gravity,and  have  a  certain  swimming  and  oscil- 
lating appearance.  The  Raphael  in  the  Dresden 
gallery  (the  only  great  affecting  picture  which 
I  have  seen)  is  the  quietest  and  most  passionless 
piece  you  can  imagine  ;  a  couple  of  saints  who 


230  PRUDENCE 

worship  the  Virgin  and  Child.  Nevertheless  it 
awakens  a  deeper  impression  than  the  contor- 
tions of  ten  crucified  martyrs,  For  beside  all 
the  resistless  beauty  of  form,  it  possesses  in  the 
highest  degree  the  property  of  the  perpendicu- 
larity of  all  the  figures."  This  perpendicularity 
we  demand  of  all  the  figures  in  this  picture  of 
life.  Let  them  stand  on  their  feet,  and  not  float 
and  swing.  Let  us  know  where  to  find  them. 
Let  them  discriminate  between  what  they  re- 
member and  what  they  dreamed,  call  a  spade  a 
spade,  give  us  facts,  and  honor  their  own  senses 
with  trust.1 

But  what  man  shali  dare  task  another  with 
imprudence  ?  Who  is  prudent  ?  The  men  we 
call  greatest  are  least  in  this  kingdom.  There 
is  a  certain  fatal  dislocation  in  our  relation  to 
nature,  distorting  our  modes  of  living  and  mak- 
ing every  law  our  enemy,  which  seems  at  last  to 
have  aroused  all  the  wit  and  virtue  in  the  world 
to  ponder  the  question  of  Reform.  We  must 
call  the  highest  prudence  to  counsel,  and  ask 
why  health  and  beauty  and  genius  should  now 
be  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule  of  hu- 
man nature  ?  We  do  not  know  the  properties 
of  plants  and  animals  and  the  laws  of  nature, 
through  our  sympathy  with  the  same  ;  but  this 


PRUDENCE  231 

remains  the  dream  of  poets.1  Poetry  and  pru- 
dence should  be  coincident.  Poets  should  be 
lawgivers  ;  that  is,  the  boldest  lyric  inspiration 
should  not  chide  and  insult,  but  should  announce 
and  lead  the  civil  code  and  the  day's  work.  But 
now  the  two  things  seem  irreconcilably  parted. 
We  have  violated  law  upon  law  until  we  stand 
amidst  ruins,  and  when  by  chance  we  espy  a 
coincidence  between  reason  and  the  phenomena, 
we  are  surprised.  Beauty  should  be  the  dowry 
of  every  man  and  woman,  as  invariably  as  sensa- 
tion; but  it  is  rare.  Health  or  sound  organiza- 
tion should  be  universal.  Genius  should  be  the 
child  of  genius  and  every  child  should  be  inspired ; 
but  now  it  is  not  to  be  predicted  of  any  child, 
and  nowhere  is  it  pure.  We  call  partial  half- 
lights,  by  courtesy,  genius ;  talent  which  con- 
verts itself  to  money  ;  talent  which  glitters  to- 
day that  it  may  dine  and  sleep  well  to-morrow  ; 
and  society  is  officered  by  men  of  parts,  as  they 
are  properly  called,  and  not  by  divine  men. 
These  use  their  gift  to  refine  luxury,  not  to 
abolish  it.  Genius  is  always  ascetic,  and  piety, 
and  love.  Appetite  shows  to  the  finer  souls  as 
a  disease,  and  they  find  beauty  in  rites  and 
bounds  that  resist  it. 

We  have  found  out  fine  names  to  cover  our 


232  PRUDENCE 

sensuality  withal,  but  no  gifts  can  raise  intem- 
perance. The  man  of  talent  affects  to  call  his 
transgressions  of  the  laws  of  the  senses  trivial 
and  to  count  them  nothing  considered  with  his 
devotion  to  his  art.  His  art  never  taught  him 
lewdness,  nor  the  love  of  wine,  nor  the  wish  to 
reap  where  he  had  not  sowed.  His  art  is  less 
for  every  deduction  from  his  holiness,  and  less 
for  every  defect  of  common  sense.  On  him 
who  scorned  the  world,  as  he  said,  the  scorned 
world  wreaks  its  revenge.  He  that  despiseth 
small  things  will  perish  by  little  and  little.1 
Goethe's  Tasso  is  very  likely  to  be  a  pretty  fair 
historic  portrait,  and  that  is  true  tragedy.  It 
does  not  seem  to  me  so  genuine  grief  when 
some  tyrannous  Richard  the  Third  oppresses 
and  slays  a  score  of  innocent  persons,  as  when 
Antonio  and  Tasso,  both  apparently  right, 
wrong  each  other.  One  living  after  the  maxims 
of  this  world  and  consistent  and  true  to  them, 
tmTotKer  fired  with  all  divine  sentiments,  yet 
grasping  also  at  the  pleasures  of  sense,  with- 
out submitting  to  their  law.  That  is  a  grief  we 
all  feel,  a  knot  we  cannot  untie.  Tasso's  is 
no  unfrequent  case  in  modern  biography.  A 
man  of  genius,  of  an  ardent  temperament,  reck- 
less of  physical  laws,  self-  indulgent,  becomes 


PRUDENCE  233 

presently  unfortunate,  querulous,  a  "  discomfort- 
able  cousin,"  a  thorn  to  himself  and  to  others. 

The  scholar  shames  us  by  his  bifold  life. 
Whilst  something  higher  than  prudence  is  ac- 
tive, he  is  admirable  ;  when  common  sense  is 
wanted,  he  is  an  encumbrance.  Yesterday,  Cae- 
sar was  not  so  great ;  to-day,  the  felon  at  the 
gallows'  foot  is  not  more  miserable.  Yester- 
day, radianL_wjlh_the  light  of  an  ideal  world 
in  which  he  lives,  the  first  of  men ;  and  now 
oppressed  by  wants  and  by  sickness,  for  which 
he  must  thank  himself.1  He  resembles  the  pit- 
iful drivellers  whom  travellers  describe  as  fre- 
quenting the  bazaars  of  Constantinople,  who 
skulk  about  all  day,  yellow,  emaciated,  ragged, 
sneaking;  and  at  evening,  when  the  bazaars 
are  open,  slink  to  the  opium-shop,  swallow  their 
morsel  and  become  tranquil  and  glorified  seers. 
And  who  has  not  seen  the  tragedy  of  imprudent 
genius  struggling  for  years  with  paltry  pecun- 
iary difficulties,  at  last  sinking,  chilled,  exhausted 
and  fruitless,  like  a  giant  slaughtered  by  pins  ? 

Is  it  not  better  that  a  man  should  accept  the 
first  pains  and  mortifications  of  this  sort,  which 
nature  is  not  slack  in  sending  him,  as  hints  that 
he  must  expect  no  other  good  than  the  just 
fruit  of  his  own  labor  and  self-denial?  Health, 


234  PRUDENCE 

bread,  climate,  social  position,  have  their  im- 
portance, and  he  will  give  them  their  due.  Let 
•  him  esteem  Nature  a  perpetual  counsellor,  and 
her  perfections  the  exact  measure  of  our  devia- 
,  tions.  Let  him  make  the  night  night,  and  the 
*  day  day.  Let  hinrcontrol  the  habit  of  expense. 
Let  him  see  that  as  much  wisdom  may  be  ex- 
pended on  a  private  economy  as  on  an  empire, 
and  as  much  wisdom  may  be  drawn  from  it. 
The  laws  of  the  world  are  written  out  for  him 
on  every  piece  of  money  in  his  hand.  There  is 
nothing  he  will  not  be  the  better  for  knowing, 
were  it  only  the  wisdom  of  Poor  Richard,  or 
the  State-Street  prudence  of  buying  by  the  acre 
to  sell  by  the  foot ;  or  the  thrift  of  the  agri- 
culturist, to  stick  a  tree  between  whiles,  because 
it  will  grow  whilst  he  sleeps  ;  or  the  prudence 
which  consists  in  husbanding  little  strokes  of 
the  tool,  little  portions  of  time,  particles  of 
stock  and  small  gains.  The  eye  of  prudence 
may  never  shut.  Iron,  if  kept  at  the  ironmon- 
ger's, will  rust ;  beer,  if  not  brewed  in  the  right 
state  of  the  atmosphere,  will  sour ;  timber  of 
ships  will  rot  at  sea,  or  if  laid  up  high  and  dry, 
will  strain,  warp  and  dry-rot ;  money,  if  kept 
by  us,  yields  no  rent  and  is  liable  to  loss ;  if 
invested,  is  liable  to  depreciation  of  the  particu- 


PRUDENCE  235 

Jar  kind  of  stock.  Strike,  says  the  smith,  the 
iron  is  white ;  keep  the  rake,  says  the  haymaker, 
as  nigh  the  scythe  as  you  can,  and  the  cart  as 
nigh  the  rake.  Our  Yankee  trade  is  reputed  to 
be  very  much  on  the  extreme  of  this  prudence. 
It  takes  bank-notes,  good,  bad,  clean,  ragged, 
and  saves  itself  by  the  speed  with  which  it  passes 
them  off.  Iron  cannot  rust,  nor  beer  sour,  nor 
timber  rot,  nor  calicoes  go  out  of  fashion,  nor 
money  stocks  depreciate,  in  the  few  swift  mo- 
ments in  which  the  Yankee  suffers  any  one  of 
them  to  remain  in  his  possession.  In  skating 
over  thin  ice  our  safety  is  in  our  speed.1 

Let  him  learn  a  prudence  of  a  higher  strain. 
Let  him  learn  that  every  thing  in  nature,  even 
motes  and  feathers,  go  by  law  and  not  by  luck, 
and  that^th^tJie^QW-sJhLe  reaps.  By  diligence 
and  self-command  let  him  put  the  bread  he  eats 
at  his  own  disposal,  that  he  may  not  stand  in 
bitter  and  false  relations  to  other  men  ;  for  the 
best  good  of  wealth  is  freedom.  Let  him  prac- 
tise the  minor  virtues.  How  much  of  human 
life  is  lost  in  waiting !  let  him  not  make  his 
fellow-creatures  wait.  How  many  words  and 
promises  are  promises  of  conversation  !  Let  his 
be  words  of  fate.  When  he  sees  a  folded  and 
sealed  scrap  of  paper  float  round  the  globe  in 


236  PRUDENCE 

a  pine  ship  and  come  safe  to  the  eye  for  which 
it  was  written,  amidst  a  swarming  population, 
let  him  likewise  feel  the  admonition  to  integrate 
his  being  across  all  these  distracting  forces,  and 
keep  a  slender  human  word  among  the  storms, 
distances  and  accidents  that  drive  us  hither  and 
thither,  and,  by  persistency,  make  the  paltry 
force  of  one  man  reappear  to  redeem  its  pledge 
after  months  and  years  in  the  most  distant  cli- 
mates. 

We  must  not  try  to  write  the  laws  of  any  one 
virtue,  looking  at  that  only.  Human_jiature 
loves  no  contradictions,  but  is  symmetrical. 
The  prudence  which  secures  an  outward  well- 
being  is  not  to  be  studied  by  one  set  of  men, 
whilst  heroism  and  holiness  are  studied  by  an- 
other, but  they  are  reconcilable.  Prudence  con- 
cerns the  present  time,  persons,  property  and 
existing  forms.  But  as  every  fact  hath  its  roots 
in  the  soul,  and  if  the  soul  were  changed  would 
cease  to~t>e,  or  would  become  some  other  thing, 
—  the  proper  administration  of  outward  things 
will  always  rest  on  a  just  apprehension  of  their 
cause  and  origin ;  that  is,  the  good  man  will  be 
the  wise  man,  and  the  single-hearted  the  politic 
man.  Every  violation  of  truth  is  not  only  a  sort 
of  suicide  in  the  liar,  but  is  a  stab  at  the  health 


PRUDENCE  237 

of  human  society.  On  the  most  profitable  lie 
the  course  of  events  presently  lays  a  destructive 
tax  ;  whilst  frankness  invites  frankness,  puts  the 
parties  on  a  convenient  footing  and  makes  their 
business  a  friendship.  Trust  men  and  they  will 
be  true  to  you  ;  treat  them  greatly  and  they  will 
show  themselves  great,  though  they  make  an  ex- 
ception in  your  favor  to  all  their  rules  of  trade. 
So,  in  regard  to  disagreeable  and  formidable 
things,  prudence  does  not  consist  in  evasion  or 
in  flight,  but  in  courage.  He  who  wishes  to 
walk  in  the  most  peaceful  parts  of  life  with  any 
serenity  must  screw  himself  up  to  resolution. 
Let  him  front  the  object  of  his  worst  apprehen- 
sion, and  his  stoutness  will  commonly  make  his 
fear  groundless.  The  Latin  proverb  says,  "In 
battles  the  eye  is  first  overcome."  z  Entire  self- 
possession  may  make  a  battle  very  little  more 
dangerous  to  life  than  a  match  at  foils  or  at  foot- 
ball. Examples  are  cited  by  soldiers  of  men 
who  have  seen  the  cannon  pointed  and  the  fire 
given  to  it,  and  who  have  stepped  aside  from  the 
path  of  the  ball.  The  terrors  of  the  storm  are 
chiefly  confined  to  the  parlor  and  the  cabin. 
The  drover,  the  sailor,  buffets  it  all  day,  and  his 
health  renews  itself  at  as  vigorous  a  pulse  under 
the  sleet  as  under  the  sun  of  June. 


238  PRUDENCE 

In  the  occurrence  of  unpleasant  things  among 
neighbors,  fear  comes  readily  to  heart  and  mag- 
nifies the  consequence  of  the  other  party ;  but 
it  is  a  bad  counsellor.  Every  man  is  actually 
weak  and  apparently  strong.  To  himself  he 
seems  weak ;  to  others,  formidable.  You  are 
afraid  of  Grim ;  but  Grim  also  is  afraid  of  you. 
You  are  solicitous  of  the  good-will  of  the  mean- 
est person,  uneasy  at  his  ill-will.  But  the  stur- 
diest offender  of  your  peace  and  of  the  neigh- 
borhood, if  you  rip  up  his  claims,  is  as  thin  and 
timid  as  any,  and  the  peace  of  society  is  often 
kept,  because,  as  children  say,  one  is  afraid  and 
the  other  dares  not.  Far  off,  men  swell,  bully 
and  threaten  ;  bring  them  hand  to  hand,  and 
they  are  a  feeble  folk. 

Itjsagroverb  that  'courtesy  costs  nothing ;  * 
but  calculation  might  come  to  value  love  for  its 
profit.  Love_j§_fkbled_tQ_heJblind,  but  kindness 
is  necessary  to  perception;  love  is  not  a  hood, 
but  an  eye-water.  If  you  meet  a  sectary  or  a  hos- 
tile partisan,  never  recognize  the  dividing  lines, 
but  meet  on  what  common  ground  remains, — 
if  only  that  the  sun  shines  and  the  rain  rains  for 
both  ;  the  area  will  widen  very  fast,  and  ere  you 
know  it,  the  boundary  mountains  on  which  the 
eye  had  fastened  have  melted  into  air.  If  they 


PRUDENCE  239 

set  out  to  contend,  Saint  Paul  will  lie  and  Saint 
John  will  hate.  What  low,  poor,  paltry,  hypo- 
critical people  an  argument  on  religion  will 
make  of  the  pure  and  chosen  souls  !  They  will 
shuffle  and  crow,  crook  and  hide,  feign  to  con- 
fess here,  only  that  they  may  brag  and  conquer 
there,  and  not  a  thought  has  enriched  either 
party,  and  not  an  emotion  of  bravery,  modesty, 
or  hope.1  So  neither  should  you  put  yourself 
in  a  false  position  with  your  contemporaries 
by  indulging  a  vein  of  hostility  and  bitterness. 
Though  your  views  are  in  straight  antagonism 
to  theirs,  assume  an  identity  of  sentiment,  as- 
sume that  you  are  saying  precisely  that  which 
all  think,  and  in  the  flow  of  wit  and  love  roll  out 
yourparadoxes^ir^  solid  column,  with  not  trie 
infirmity  of  a  doubt.  So  at  least  shall  you  get 
an  adequate  deliverance.  The  natural  motions 
of  the  soul  are  so  much  better  than  the  volun- 
tary ones  that  you  will  never  do  yourself  jus- 
tice in  dispute.  The  thought  is  not  then  taken 

hnM^f  Ky  1-hp  rigjif  JvinrUpj  does    not    SHOW  it- 

self  proportioned  and  in  its  true  bearings,  but 
bears  extorted,  hoarse,  and  half  witness.  But  as- 
sume a  consent  and  it  shall  presently  be  granted, 
since  really  and  underneath  their  external  diver- 
sities, all  men  are  of  one  heart  and  mind.* 


240  PRUDENCE 

Wisdom  will  never  let  us  stand  with  any  man 
or  men  on  an  unfriendly  footing.  We  refuse 
sympathy  and  intimacy  with  people,  as  if  we 
waited  for  some  better  sympathy  and  intimacy 
to  come.  But  whence  and  when  ?  To-morrow 
will  be  like  to-day.  Life  wastes  itself  whilst  we 
are  preparing  to  live.  Our  friends  and  fellow- 
workers  die  off  from  us.  Scarcely  can  we  say  we 
see  new  men,  new  women,  approaching  us.  We 
are  too  old  to  regard  fashion,  too  old  to  expect 
patronage  of  any  greater  or  more  powerful.  Let 
us  suck  the  sweetness  of  those  affections  and 
consuetudes  that  grow  near  us.  These  old  shoes 
are  easy  to  the  feet.  Undoubtedly  we  can  easily 
pick  faults  in  our  company,  can  easily  whisper 
names  prouder,  and  that  tickle  the  fancy  more. 
Every  man's  imagination  hath  its  friends  ;  and 
life  would  be  dearer  with  such  companions.  But 
if  you  cannot  have  them  on  good  mutual  terms, 
you  cannot  have  them.  If  not  the  Deity  but 
our  ambition  hews  and  shapes  the  ne«v  rela- 
tions, their  virtue  escapes,  as  strawberries  lose 
their  flavor  in  garden-beds. 

Thus  truth,  frankness,  courage,  love,  humil- 
ity and  all  the  virtues  range  themselves  on  the 
side  of  prudence,  or  the  art  of  securing  a  pre- 
sent well-being.  I  do  not  know  if  all  matter 


PRUDENCE  241 

will  be  found  to  be  made  of  one  element,  as 
oxygen  or  hydrogen,  at  last,  but  the  world  of 
manners  and  actions  is  wrought  of  one  stuff,  and 
begin  where  we  will,  we  are  pretty  sure  in  a 
short  space  to  be  mumbling  our  ten  command- 
ments. 


VIII 
HEROISM 

'*  Paradise  is  under  the  shadow  of  swords. ' 


Mahomtt. 


RUBY  wine  is  drunk  by  knaves, 
Sugar  spends  to  fatten  slaves, 
Rose  and  vine-leaf  deck  buffoons  ; 
Thunderclouds  are  Jove's  festoons, 
Drooping  oft  in  wreaths  of  dread 
Lightning-knotted  round  his  head: 
The  hero  is  not  fed  on  sweets, 
Daily  his  own  heart  he  eats  ; 
Chambers  of  the  great  are  jails, 
And  head-winds  right  for  royal  sails. 


HEROISM 

IN  the  elder  English  dramatists,  and  mainly 
in  the  plays  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
there  is  a  constant  recognition  of  gentility,  as  if 
a  noble  behavior  were  as  easily  marked  in  the 
society  of  their  age  as  color  is  in  our  American 
population.  When  any  Rodrigo,  Pedro  or  Va- 
lerio  enters,  though  he  be  a  stranger,  the  duke 
or  governor  exclaims,  '  This  is  a  gentleman,' — 
and  proffers  civilities  without  end  ;  but  all  the 
rest  are  slag  and  refuse.  In  harmony  with  this 
delight  in  personal  advantages  there  is  in  their 
plays  a  certain  heroic  cast  of  character  and  dia- 
logue,—  as  in  Bonduca,  Sophocles,1  the  Mad 
Lover,  the  Double  Marriage,  —  wherein  the 
speaker  is  so  earnest  and  cordial  and  on  such 
deep  grounds  of  character,  that  the  dialogue,  on 
the  slightest  additional  incident  in  the  plot,  rises 
naturally  into  poetry.  Among  many  texts  take 
the  following.  The  Roman  Martius  has  con- 
quered Athens,  —  all  but  the  invincible  spirits 
of  Sophocles,  the  duke  of  Athens,  and  Dorigen, 
his  wife.  The  beauty  of  the  latter  inflames  Mar- 
tius, and  he  seeks  to  save  her  husband;  but 
Sophocles  will  not  ask  his  life,  although  assured 


246  HEROISM 

that  a  word  will  save  him,  and  the  execution  of 
both  proceeds :  — 

Valerius.  Bid  thy  wife  farewell. 

Soph.    No,  I  will  take  no  leave.    My  Dorigen, 
Yonder,  above,  'bout  Ariadne's  crown, 
My  spirit  shall  hover  for  thee.    Prithee,  haste. 

Dor.    Stay,  Sophocles,  —  with  this  tie  up  my  sight} 
Let  not  soft  nature  so  transformed  be, 
And  lose  her  gentler  sexed  humanity, 
To  make  me  see  my  lord  bleed.    So,  'tis  well; 
Never  one  object  underneath  the  sun 
Will  I  behold  before  my  Sophocles  : 
Farewell ;  now  teach  the  Romans  how  to  die. 

Mar.    Dost  know  what  't  is  to  die  ? 

Soph.  Thou  dost  not,  Martius, 

And,  therefore,  not  what  '  t  is  to  live ;  to  die 
Is  to  begin  to  live.    It  is  to  end 
An  old,  stale,  weary  work  and  to  commence 
A  newer  and  a  better.    'Tis  to  leave 
Deceitful  knaves  for  the  society 
Of  gods  and  goodness.    Thou  thyself  must  part 
At  last  from  all  thy  garlands,  pleasures,  triumphs, 
And  prove  thy  fortitude  what  then  't  will  do. 

Vol.    But  art  not  grieved  nor  vexed  to  leave  thy  life  thus 

Soph.    Why  should  I  grieve  or  vex  for  being  sent 
To  them  I  ever  loved  best  ?    Now  I  '11  kneel, 
But  with  my  back  toward  thee  :  'tis  the  last  duty 
This  trunk  can  do  the  gods. 

Mar.  Strike,  strike,  Valerius, 

Or  Martius'  heart  will  leap  out  at  his  mouth. 
This  is  a  man,  a  woman.    Kiss  thy  lord, 


HEROISM  247 

And  live  with  all  the  freedom  you  were  wont. 
O  love  !  thou  doubly  hast  afflicted  me 
With  virtue  and  with  beauty.    Treacherous  heart, 
My  hand  shall  cast  thee  quick  into  my  urn, 
Ere  thou  transgress  this  knot  of  piety. 

Val.    What  ails  my  brother  ? 

Soph.  Martius,  O  Martius, 

Thou  now  hast  found  a  way  to  conquer  me. 

Dor.    O  star  of  Rome  !  what  gratitude  can  speak 
Fit  words  to  follow  such  a  deed  as  this  ? 

Mar.    This  admirable  duke,  Valerius, 
With  his  disdain  of  fortune  and  of  death, 
Captived  himself,  has  captivated  me, 
And  though  my  arm  hath  ta'en  his  body  here, 
His  soul  hath  subjugated  Martius'  soul. 
By  Romulus,  he  is  all  soul,  I  think  ; 
He  hath  no  flesh,  and  spirit  cannot  be  gyved, 
Then  we  have  vanquished  nothing  ;  he  is  free, 
And  Martius  walks  now  in  captivity." 

I  do  not  readily  remember  any  poem,  play, 
sermon,  novel  or  oration  that  our  press  vents 
in  the  last  few  years,  which  goes  to  the  same 
tune.  We  have  a  great  many  flutes  and  flageo- 
lets, but  not  often  the  sound  of  any  fife.  Yet 
Wordsworth's  "  Laodamia,"  and  the  ode  of 
"  Dion,"  and  some  sonnets,  have  a  certain  noble 
music ;  and  Scott  will  sometimes  draw  a  stroke 
like  the  portrait  of  Lord  Evandale  given  by 
Balfour  of  Burley.1  Thomas  Carlyle,  with  his 


248  HEROISM 

natural  taste  for  what  is  manly  and  daring  in 
character,  has  suffered  no  heroic  trait  in  his 
favorites  to  drop  from  his  biographical  and  his- 
torical pictures.  Earlier,  Robert  Burns  has 
given  us  a  song  or  two.  In  the  Harleian  Mis- 
cellanies there  is  an  account  of  the  battle  of 
Lutzen  which  deserves  to  be  read.  And  Simon 
Ockley's  History  of  the  Saracens  recounts  the 
prodigies  of  individual  valor,  with  admiration 
all  the  more  evident  on  the  part  of  the  narrator 
that  he  seems  to  think  that  his  place  in  Chris- 
tian Oxford  requires  of  him  some  proper  pro- 
testations of  abhorrence.  But  if  we  explore  the 
literature  of  Heroism  we  shall  quickly  come  to 
Plutarch,  who  is  its  Doctor  and  historian.  To 
him  we  owe  the  Brasidas,  the  Dion,  the  Epami- 
nondas,  the  Scipio  of  old,  and  I  must  think  we 
are  more  deeply  indebted  to  him  than  to  all  the 
ancient  writers.  Each  of  his  "  Lives  "  is  a  refu- 
tation to  the  despondency  and  cowardice  of  our 
/  religious  and  political  theorists.  A  wild  courage, 
a  Stoicism  not  of  the  schools  but  of  the  blood, 
shines  in  every  anecdote,  and  has  given  that 
book  its  immense  fame.1 

We  need  books  of  this  tart  cathartic  virtue 
more  than  books  of  political  science  or  of  pri- 
vate economy.  Life  is  a  festival  only  to  the 


HEROISM  249 

wise.  Seen  from  the  nook  and  chimney -side 
of  prudence,  it  wears  a  ragged  and  dangerous 
front.  The  violations  of  the  laws  of  nature  by 
our  predecessors  and  our  contemporaries  are 
punished  in  us  also.  The  disease  and  deformity 
around  us  certify  the  infraction  of  natural,  in-  > 
tellectual  and  moral  laws,  and  often  violation  on 
violation  to  breed  such  compound  misery.  A 
lock-jaw  that  bends  a  man's  head  back  to  his 
heels  ;  hydrophobia  that  makes  him  bark  at  his 
wife  and  babes  ;  insanity  that  makes  him  eat 
grass ;  war,  plague,  cholera,  famine,  indicate  a*** 
certain  ferocity  in  nature,  which,  as  it  had  its* 
inlet  by  human  crime,  must  have  its  outlet  by 
human  suffering.  Unhappily  no  man  exists 
who  has  not  in  his  own  person  become  to  some 
amount  a  stockholder  in  the  sin,  and  so  made 
himself  liable  to  a  share  in  the  expiation. 

Our  culture  therefore  must  not  omit  the  arm- 
ing of  the  man.  Let  him  hear  in  season  that  he 
is  born  into  the  state  of  war,  and  that  the  com- 
monwealth and  his  own  well-being  require  that 
he  should  not  go  dancing  in  the  weeds  of  peace, 
but  warned,  self-collected  and  neither  defying 
nor  dreading  the  thunder,  ]et  him  take  both 
reputation  and  life  in  his  hand,  and  with  perfect 
urbanity  dare  the  gibbet  and  the  mob  by  the 


250  HEROISM 

\  jkbsolute  truth  of  his  speech  and  the  rectitude 
fof  his  behavior.1 

Towards  all  this  external  evil  the  man  within 
the  breast  assumes  a  warlike  attitude,  and  affirms 
his  ability  to  cope  single-handed  with  the  infi- 
nite army  of  enemies.  To  this  military  attitude 
of  the  soul  we  give  the  name  of  Heroism.  Its 
rudest  form  is  the  contempt  for  safety  and  ease, 
which  makes  the  attractiveness  of  war.  It  is  a 
self-trust  which  slights  the  restraints  of  prudence, 
in  the  plenitude  of  itsTenergy  and  power  to  re- 
pair the  harms  it  may  suffer.  The  hero  is  a 
mind  of  such  balance  that  no  disturbances  can 
shake  his  will,  but  pleasantly  and  as  it  were 
merrily  he  advances  to  his  own  music,  alike  in 
frightful  alarms  and  in  the  tipsy  mirth  of  uni- 
versal dissoluteness.  There  is  somewhat  not^ 
philosophical  in  heroism ;  there  is  somewhat 
\  not  holy  in  it ;  it  seems  not  to  know  that  other 
souls  are  of  one  texture  with  it;  it  has  pride ^ 
it  is  the  extreme  of  individual  nature.  Never-. 
theless  we  mustprofdulTdly  revere  it.  There 
is  somewhat  in  great  actions  which  does  not 
allow  us  to  go  behind  them.  Heroism  feels  and 
never  reasons,  and  therefore  is  always  right ; 
and  although  a  different  breeding,  different  re- 
ligion and  greater  intellectual  activity  would 


HEROISM  251 

have  modified  or  even  reversed  the  particular 
action,  yet  for  the  hero  that  thing  he  does  is 
the  highest  deed,  and  is  not  open  to  the  censure 
of  philosophers  or  divines.  It  is  the  avowal  of 
the  unschooled  man  that  he  finds  a  quality  in 
him  that  is  negligent  of  expense,  of  health,  of 
life,  of  danger,  of  hatred,  of  reproach,  and  knows 
that  his  will  is  higher  and  more  excellent  than 
all  actual  and  all  possible  antagonists. 

Heroism  works  in  contradiction  to  the  voice 
of  mankind  and  in  contradiction,  for  a  time,  to 
the  voice  of  the  great  and  good.  Heroism  is 
an  obedience  to  a  secret  impulse  of  an  individ- 
ual's character.  Now  to  no  other  man  can  its 
wisdom  appear  as  it  does  to  him,  for  every  man 
must  be  supposed  to  see  a  little  farther  on  his 
own  proper  path  than  any  one  else.  Therefore 
just  and  wise  men  take  umbrage  at  his  act,  until 
after  some  little  time  be  past ;  then  they  see  it 
to  be  in  unison  with  their  acts.  All  pradgnt 
men  see  that  the  action  is  clean  contrary  to  a 
sensual  prosperity ;  for  every  heroic  act  measures  \ 
itself  by  its  contempt  of  some  external  good.  ' 
But  it  finds  its  own  success  at  last,  and  then  the 
prudent  also  extol.1 

Self-trust  is  the  essence  of  heroism.   It  is  the 
state  of  the  soul_at_war,  and  its  ultimate  objects 


252  HEROISM 

are  the  last  defiance  of  falsehood  and  wrong,  and 
the  power  to  bear  all  that  can  be  inflicted  by  evil 
agents.  It  speaks  the  truth  and  it  is  just,  gen- 
erous, hospitable,  temperate,  scornful  of  petty 
calculations  and  scornful  of  being  scorned.  It 
persists ;  it  is  of  an  undaunted  boldness  and  of 
a  fortitude  not  to  be  wearied  out.  Its  jest  is 
the  littleness  of  common  life.  That  fa[se_pru- 
dence  which  dotes  on  health  and  wealth  is  the 
butt  and  merriment  of  heroism.  Heroism,  like 
Plotinus,  is  almost  ashamed  of  its  body.  What 
shall  it  say  then  to  the  sugar-plums  and  cats'- 
cradles,  to  the  toilet,  compliments, quarrels,  cards 
and  custard,  which  rack  the  wit  of  all  society  ? 
What  joys  has  kind  nature  provided  for  us  dear 
creatures  !  There  seems  to  be  no  interval  be- 
tween greatness  and  meanness.  When  the  spirit 
is  not  master  of  the  world,  then  it  is  its  dupe. 
Yet  the  little  man  takes  the  great  hoax  so  inno- 
cently, works  in  it  so  headlong  and  believing, 
is  born  red,  and  dies  gray,  arranging  his  toilet, 
attending  on  his  own  health,  laying  traps  for 
sweet  food  and  strong  wine,  setting  his  heart  on 
a  horse  or  a  rifle,  made  happy  with  a  little  gos- 
sip or  a  little  praise,  that  the  great  soul  cannot 
choose  but  laugh  at  such  earnest  nonsense.  "  In- 
deed, these  humble  considerations  make  me  out 


HEROISM  253 

of  love  with  greatness.  What  a  disgrace  is  it  to 
me  to  take  note  how  many  pairs  of  silk  stock- 
ings thou  hast,  namely,  these  and  those  that 
were  the  peach-colored  ones;  or  to  bear  the 
inventory  of  thy  shirts,  as  one  for  superfluity, 
and  one  other  for  use  !  "  ' 

Citizens,  thinking  after  the  laws  of  arithmetic, 
consider  the  inconvenience  of  receiving  strangers 
at  their  fireside,  reckon  narrowly  the  loss  of  time 
and  the  unusual  display  ;  the  soul  of  a  better 
quality  thrusts  back  the  unseasonable  economy 
into  the  vaults  of  life,  and  says,  I  will  obey 
the  God,  and  the  sacrifice  and  the  fire  he  will 
provide.  Ibn  Haukal,  the  Arabian  geographer, 
describes  a  heroic  extreme  in  the  hospitality 
of  Sogd,  in  Bukharia.  "  When  I  was  in  Sogd  I 
saw  a  great  building,  like  a  palace,  the  gates  of 
which  were  open  and  fixed  back  to  the  wall  with 
large  nails.  I  asked  the  reason,  and  was  told  that 
the  house  had  not  been  shut,  night  or  day,  for 
a  hundred  years.  Strangers  may  present  them- 
selves at  any  hour  and  in  whatever  number; 
the  master  has  amply  provided  for  the  recep- 
tion of  the  men  and  their  animals,  and  is  never 
happier  than  when  they  tarry  for  some  time. 
Nothing  of  the  kind  have  I  seen  in  any  other 
country."2  The  magnanimous  know  very  well 


254  HEROISM 

that  they  who  give  time,  or  money,  or  shelter, 
to  the  stranger,  —  so  it  be  done  for  love  and 
not  for  ostentation,  —  do,  as  it  were,  put  God 
under  obligation  to  them,  so  perfect  are  the 
compensations  ofthejuniverse.  In  some  way 
tlie  time  theylieem  to  lose  is  redeemed  and  the 
pains  they  seem  to  take  remunerate  themselves. 
These  men  fan  the  flame  of  human  love  and 
raise  the  standard  of  civil  virtue  among  mankind. 
But  hospitality  must  be  for  service  and  not  for 
show,  or  it  pulls  down  the  host.  The  brave  soul 
rates  itself  too  high  to  value  itself  by  the  splen- 
dor of  its  table  and  draperies.  It  gives  what  it 
hath,  a^ti  all  it  hath,  but  its  own  majesty  can 
lend  a  better  grace  to  bannocks  and  fair  water 
than  belong  to  city  feasts.1 

The  temperance  of  the  hero  proceeds  from 
the  same  wish  to  do  no  dishonor  to  the  worthi- 
ness he  has.  But  he  loves  it  for  its  elegancy,  not 
for  its  austerity.  It  seems  not  worth  his  while 
to  be  solemn  and  denounce  with  bitterness  flesh- 
eating  or  wine-drinking,  the  use  of  tobacco,  or 
opium,  or  tea,  or  silk,  or  gold.  A  great  man 
scarcely  knows  how  he  dines,  how  he  dresses;  but 
without  railing  or  precision  his  living  is  natural 
and  poetic.  John  Eliot,  the  Indian  Apostle, 
drank  water,  and  said  of  wine,  —  "It  is  a  noble, 


HEROISM  255 

generous  liquor  and  we  should  be  humbly  thank- 
ful for  it,  but,  as  I  remember,  water  was  made 
before  it."  Better  still  is  the  temperance  of  King 
David,  who  poured  out  on  the  ground  unto  the 
Lord  the  water  which  three  of  his  warriors  had 
brought  him  to  drink  at  the  peril  of  their  lives. 

It  is  told  of  Brutus,  that  when  he  fell  on  his 
sword  after  the  battle  of  Philippi,  he  quoted  a 
line  of  Euripides,  — "  O  Yirtue !    I  have  fol-   ^ 
lowed  thee  through  life,  and  I  find  thee  at  last 
but  a  shade."    I  doubt  not  the  hero  is  slandered 
by  this  report.   The  heroic  soul  does  not  sell 
its  justice  and  its  nobleness.    It  does  not  ask  to 
dine  nicely  and  to  sleep  warm.    The  essence  of 
greatness  is  the  perception  that  virtue  is  enough.yV 
Poverty  is  its  ornament.  It  does  not  need  plenty,)  '.< 
and  can  very  well  abide  its  loss. 

But  that  which  takes  my  fancy  most  in  the 
heroic  class,  is  the  good-humor  and  hilarity  they 
exhibit.  It  is  a  height  to  which  common  duty 
can  very  well  attain,  to  suffer  and  to  dare  with 
solemnity.  But  these  rare  souls  set  opinion,  suc- 
cess, and  life  at  so  cheap  a  rate  that  they  will 
not  soothe  their  enemies  by  petitions,  or  the 
show  of  sorrow,  but  wear  their  own  habitual 
greatness.  Scipio,  charged  with  peculation,  re-  , 
fuses  to  do  himself  so  great  a  disgrace  as  to  wait 


256  HEROISM 

for  justification,  though  he  had  the  scroll  of  his 
accounts  in  his  hands,  but  tears  it  to  pieces  be- 
fore the  tribunes.1  Socrates's  condemnation  of 
himself  to  be  maintained  in  all  honor  in  the 
Prytaneum,  during  his  life,  and  Sir  Thomas 
More's  playfulness  at  the  scaffold,  are  of  the 
same  strain.  In  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  "  Sea 
Voyage,"  Juletta  tells  the  stout  captain  and  his 
company,  — 

Jul.    Why,  slaves,  't  is  in  our  power  to  hang  ye. 

Master.  Very  likely, 

'T  is  in  our  powers,  then,  to  be  hanged,  and  scorn  ye. 

These  replies  are  sound  and  whole.  Sport  is  the 
bloom  and  glow  of  a  perfect  health.  The  great 
will  not  condescend  to  take  any  thing  seriously ; 
all  must  be  as  gay  as  the  song  of  a  canary, 
though  it  were  the  building  of  cities  or  the 
eradication  of  old  and  foolish  churches  and  na- 
tions which  have  cumbered  the  earth  long  thou- 
sands of  years.  Simple  hearts  put  all  the  history 
and  customs  of  this  world  behind  them,  and  play 
their  own  game  in  innocent  defiance  of  the  Blue- 
Laws  of  the  world;  and  such  would  appear, 
could  we  see  the  human  race  assembled  in  vision, 
like  little  children  frolicking  together,  though  to 
the  eyes  of  mankind  at  large  they  wear  a  stately 
and  solemn  garb  of  works  and  influences. 


HEROISM  257 

The  Interest  these  fine  stories  have  for  us,  the 
power  of  a  romance  over  the  boy  who  grasps 
the  forbidden  book  under  his  bench  at  school, 
our  delight  in  the  hero,  is  the  main  fact  to  our 
purpose.1  All  these  great  and  transcendent  pro- 
perties are  ours.  If  we  dilate  in  beholding  the 
Greek  energy,  the  Roman  pride,  it  is  that  we 
are  already  domesticating  the  same  sentiment. 
Let  us  find  room  for  this  great  guest  in  our 
small  houses.  The  first  step  of  worthiness  will 
be  to  disabuse  us  of  our  superstitious  associa- 
tions with  places  and  times,  with  number  and 
size.  Why  should  these  words,  Athenian,  Ro- 
man, Asia  and  England,  so  tingle  in  the  ear  ? 
Where  the  heart  is,  there  the  muses,  there  the 
gods  sojourn,  and  not  in  any  geography  of  fame. 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut  River  and  Boston 
Bay  you  think  paltry  places,  and  the  ear  loves 
names  of  foreign  and  classic  topography.  But 
here  we  are ;  and,  if  we  will  tarry  a  little,  we 
may  come  to  learn  that  here  is  best.  See  to  it 
only  that  thyself  is  here,  and  art  and  nature, 
hope  and  fate,  friends,  angels  and  the  Supreme 
Being  shall  not  be  absent  from  the  chambei 
where  thou  sittest.  Epaminondas,  brave  and 
affectionate,  does  not  seem  to  us  to  need  Olym- 
pus to  die  upon,  nor  the  Syrian  sunshine.  He 


258  HEROISM 

lies  very  well  where  he  is.  The  Jerseys  were 
handsome  ground  enough  for  Washington  to 
tread,  and  London  streets  for  the  feet  of  Milton. 
/"A  great  man  makes  his  climate  genial  in  the 
I  imagination  of  men,  and  its  air  the  beloved 
^element  of  all  delicate  spirits.  That  country  is 
the  fairest  which  is  inhabited  by  the  noblest 
minds.  The  pictures  which  fill  the  imagination 
in  reading  the  actions  of  Pericles,  Xenophon, 
Columbus,  Bayard,  Sidney,  Hampden,  teach  us 
how  needlessly  mean  our  life  is ;  that  we,  by 
the  depth  of  our  living,  should  deck  it  with 
more  than  regal  or  national  splendor,  and  act 
on  principles  that  should  interest  man  and  na- 
ture in  the  length  of  our  days.1 

We  have  seen  or  heard  of  many  extraordinary 
young  men  who  never  ripened,  or  whose  per- 
formance in  actual  life  was  not  extraordinary. 
When  we  see  their  air  and  mien,  when  we  hear 
them  speak  of  society,  of  books,  of  religion,  we 
admire  their  superiority ;  they  seem  to  throw 
contempt  on  our  entire  polity  and  social  state ; 
theirs  is  the  tone  of  a  youthful  giant  who  is  sent 
to  work  revolutions.  But  they  enter  an  active 
profession  and  the  forming  Colossus  shrinks  to 
the  common  size  of  man.  The  magic  they  used 
was  the  ideal  tendencies,  which  always  make  the 


HEROISM  259 

Actual  ridiculous ;  but  the  tough  world  had  its 
revenge  the  moment  they  put  their  horses  of 
the  sun  to  plough  in  its  furrow.  They  found 
no  example  and  no  companion,  and  their  heart 
fainted.  What  then  ?  The  lesson  they  gave  in 
their  first  aspirations  is  yet  true ;  and  a  better 
valor  and  a  purer  truth  shall  one  day  organize 
their  belief.  Or  why  should  a  woman  liken  her- 
self to  any  historical  woman,  and  think,  because 
Sappho,  or  Sevigne,  or  De  Stae'l,  or  the  clois- 
tered souls  who  have  had  genius  and  cultivation 
do  not  satisfy  the  imagination  and  the  serene 
Themis,  none  can,  —  certainly  not  she?  Why 
not  ?  She  has  a  new  and  unattempted  problem 
to  solve,  perchance  that  of  the  happiest  nature 
that  ever  bloomed.  Let  the  maiden,  with  erect 
§oul,  walk  serenely  on  her  way,  accept  the  hint 
of  each  new  experience,  search  in  turn  all  the 
objects  that  solicit  her  eye,  that  she  may  learn 
the  power  and  the  charm  of  her  new-born  being, 
which  is  the  kindling  of  a  new  dawn  in  the 
recesses  of  space.  The  fair  girl  who  repels  in- 
terference by  a  decided  and  proud  choice  of 
influences,  so  careless  of  pleasing,  so  wilful  and 
lofty,  inspires  every  beholder  with  somewhat  of 
her  own  nobleness.  The  silent  heart  encourages 
her ;  O  friend,  never  strike  sail  to  a  fear !  Come 


260  HEROISM 

into  port  greatly,  or  sail  with  God  the  seas. 
Not  in  vain  you  live,  for  every  passing  eye  is 
cheered  and  refined  by  the  vision. 

The  characteristic  of  heroism  is  its  persist- 
ency. All  men  have  wandering  impulses,  fits 
and  starts  of  generosity.  But  when  you  have 
chosen  your  part,  abide  by  it,  and  do  not  weakly 
try  to  reconcile  yourself  with  the  world.  The 
heroic  cannot  be  the  common,  nor  the  common 
the  heroic.  Yet  we  have  the  weakness  to  expect 
the  sympathy  of  people  in  those  actions  whose 
excellence  is  that  they  outrun  sympathy  and 
appeal  to  a  tardy  justice.  If  you  would  serve 
your  brother,  because  it  is  fit  for  you  to  serve 
him,  do  not  take  back  your  words  when  you 
find  that  prudent  people  do  not  commend  you. 
Adhere  to  your  own  act,  and  congratulate  your- 
self if  you  have  done  something  strange  and 
extravagant  and  broken  the  monotony  of  a 
decorous  age.  It  was  a  high  counsel  that  I 
once  heard  given  to  a  young  person,  —  "Al- 
ways do  what  you  are  afraid  to  do."  '  A  simple 
manly  character  need  never  make  an  apology, 
but  should  regard  its  past  action  with  the  calm- 
ness of  Phocion,  when  he  admitted  that  the 
event  of  the  battle  was  happy,  yet  did  not  re- 
gret his  dissuasion  from  the  battle. 


HEROISM  261 

There  is  no  weakness  or  exposure  for  which 
we  cannot  find  consolation  in  the  thought  — 
this  is  a  part  of  my  constitution,  part  of  my 
relation  and  office  to  my  fellow-creature.  Has 
nature  covenanted  with  me  that  I  should  never 
appear  to  disadvantage,  never  make  a  ridiculous 
figure  ?  Let  us  be  generous  of  our  dignity  as 
well  as  of  our  money.  Greatness  once  and  for 
ever  has  done  with  opinion.  We  tell  our  char- 
ities, not  because  we  wish  to  be  praised  for  them, 
not  because  we  think  they  have  great  merit,  but 
for  our  justification.  It  is  a  capital  blunder;  as 
you  discover  when  another  man  recites  his  char- 
ities. 

To  speak  the  truth,  even  with  some  austerity, 
to  live  with  some  rigor  of  temperance,  or  some 
extremes  of  generosity,  seems  to  be  an  asceti- 
cism which  common  good-nature  would  appoint 
to  those  who  are  at  ease  and  in  plenty,  in  sign 
that  they  feel  a  brotherhood  with  the  great  mul- 
titude of  suffering  men.  And  not  only  need  we 
breathe  and  exercise  the  soul  by  assuming  the 
penalties  of  abstinence,  of  debt,  of  solitude,  of 
unpopularity,  —  but  it  behooves  the  wise  man 
to  look  with  a  bold  eye  into  those  rarer  dangers 
which  sometimes  invade  men,  and  to  familiarize 
himself  with  disgusting  forms  of  disease,  with 


262  HEROISM 

sounds  of  execration,  and  the  vision  of  violent 
death. 

Times  of  heroism  are  generally  times  of  ter- 
ror, but  the  day  never  shines  in  which  this  ele- 
ment may  not  work.  The  circumstances  of  man, 
we  say,  are  historically  somewhat  better  in  this 
country  and  at  this  hour  than  perhaps  ever  be- 
fore. More  freedom  exists  for  culture.  It  will 
not  now  run  against  an  axe  at  the  first  step  out 
of  the  beaten  track  of  opinion.  But  whoso  is 
heroic  will  always  find  crises  to  try  his  edge. 
Human  virtue  demands  her  champions  and 
martyrs,  and  the  trial  of  persecution  always  pro- 
ceeds. It  is  but  the  other  day  that  the  brave 
Lovejoy  gave  his  breast  to  the  bullets  of  a  mob, 
for  the  rights  of  free  speech  and  opinion,  and 
died  when  it  was  better  not  to  live.1 

I  see  not  any  road  of  perfect  peace  which  a 
man  can  walk,  but  after  the  counsel  of  his  own 
bosom.  Let  him  quit  too  much  association,  let 
him  go  home  much,  and  stablish  himself  in 
those  courses  he  approves.3  The  unremitting 
retention  of  simple  and  high  sentiments  in  ob- 
scure duties  is  hardening  the  character  to  that 
temper  which  will  work  with  honor,  if  need  be 
in  the  tumult,  or  on  the  scaffold.  Whatever 
outrages  have  happened  to  men  may  befall  a 


HEROISM  263 

man  again ;  and  very  easily  in  a  republic,  if 
there  appear  any  signs  of  a  decay  of  religion. 
Coarse  slander,  fire,  tar  and  feathers  and  the 
gibbet,  the  youth  may  freely  bring  home  to  his 
mind  and  with  what  sweetness  of  temper  he  can, 
and  inquire  how  fast  he  can  fix  his  sense  of 
duty,  braving  such  penalties,  whenever  it  may 
please  the  next  newspaper  and  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  his  neighbors  to  pronounce  his  opinions 
incendiary. 

It  may  calm  the  apprehension  of  calamity  in 
the  most  susceptible  heart  to  see  how  quick  a 
bound  Nature  has  set  to  the  utmost  infliction 
of  malice.  We  rapidly  approach  a  brink  over 
which  no  enemy  can  follow  us :  — 

««  Let  them  rave  :  * 

Thou  art  quiet  in  thy  grave."  * 

In  the  gloom  of  our  ignorance  of  what  shall  be, 
in  the  hour  when  we  are  deaf  to  the  higher 
voices,  who  does  not  envy  those  who  have  seen 
safely  to  an  end  their  manful  endeavor?  Who 
that  sees  the  meanness  of  our  politics  but  inly 
congratulates  Washington  that  he  is  long  already 
wrapped  in  his  shroud,  and  for  ever  safe ;  that 
he  was  laid  sweet  in  his  grave,  the  hope  of  hu- 
manity not  yet  subjugated  in  him  ?  Who  does 
not  sometimes  envy  the  good  and  brave  who  are 


264  HEROISM 

no  more  to  suffer  from  the  tumults  of  the  nat- 
ural world,  and  await  with  curious  complacency 
the  speedy  term  of  his  own  conversation  with 
finite  nature?  And  yet  the  love  that  will  be 
annihilated  sooner  than  treacherous  has  already 
made  death  impossible,  and  affirms  itself  no 
mortal  but  a  native  of  the  deep^of  absolute  and 
inextinguishable  being. 


IX 

THE   OVER-SOUL 

BUT  souls  that  of  his  own  good  life  partake, 
He  loves  as  his  own  self;  dear  as  his  eye 
They  are  to  Him:  He  '11  never  them  forsake: 
When  they  shall  die,  then  God  himself  shall  die: 
They  live,  they  live  in  blest  eternity." 

Henry  Mere* 


Space  is  ample,  east  and  west, 

But  two  cannot  go  abreast, 

Cannot  travel  in  it  two: 

Yonder  masterful  cuckoo 

Crowds  every  egg  out  of  the  nest, 

Quick  or  dead,  except  its  own; 

A  spell  is  laid  on  sod  and  stone, 

Night  and  Day  've  been  tampered  with, 

Every  quality  and  pith 

Surcharged  and  sultry  with  a  power 

That  works  its  will  on  age  and  hour. 


THE    OVER-SOUL 


is  a  difference  between  one  and 
JL  another  hour  of  life  in  their  authority 
and  subsequent  effect.  Our  faith  comes  in  mo- 
ments ;  our  vice  is  habitual.  Yet  there  is  a  depth 
in  those  brief  moments  which  constrains  us  to 
ascribe  more  reality  to  them  than  to  all  other 
experiences.  For  this  reason  the  argument  which 
is  always  forthcoming  to  silence  those  who  con- 
ceive extraordinary  hopes  of  man,  namely  the 
appeal  to  experience,  is  for  ever  invalid  and  vain. 
We  give  up  the  past  to  the  objector,  and  yet  we 
hope.  He  must  explain  this  hope.  We  grant 
that  human  life  is  mean,  but  how  did  we  find  out 
that  it  was  mean  ?  '  What  is  the  ground  of  this 
uneasiness  of  ours;  of  this  old  discontent?  What 
is  the  universal  sense  of  want  and  ignorance,  but 
the  fine  innuendo  by  which  the  soul  makes  its 
enormous  claim  ?  Why  do  men  feel  that  the 
»iatural  history  of  man  has  never  been  written, 
but  he  is  always  leaving  behind  what  you  have 
said  of  him,  and  it  becomes  old,  and  books  of 
metaphysics  worthless  ?  (The  philosophy  of  six 
thousand  years  has  not  searched  the  chambers 
and  magazines  of  the  soul.  )  In  its  experiments 


268  THE  OVER-SOUL 

there  has  always  remained,  in  the  last  analysis,  a 
residuum  it  could  not  resolve.  Man  is  a  stream 
whose  source  is  hidden.1  Our  being  is  descend- 
ing into  us  from  we  know  not  whence.  The 
most  exact  calculator  has  no  prescience  that 
somewhat  incalculable  may  not  balk  the  very 
next  moment.  I  am  constrained  every  moment 
to  acknowledge  a  higher  origin  for  events  than 
the  will  I  call  mine. 

As  with  events,  so  is  it  with  thoughts.  When 
I  watch  that  fljowingjiyer,  which,  out  of  regions  I 
see  not,  pours  for  a  season  its  streams  into  me, 
I  see  that  I  am  a  pensioner ;  not  a  cause  but  a 
surprised  spectator  of  this  ethereal  water ;  that 
I  desire  and  look  up  and  put  myself  in  the  at- 
titude of  reception,  but  from  some  alien  energy 
the  visions  come.2 

The  Supreme  Critic  on  the  errors  of  the  past 
and  the  present,  and  the  only  prophet  of  that 
which  must  be,  is  that  great  nature  in  which  we 
rest  as  the  earth  lies  in  the  soft  arms  of  the  atmos- 
phere; that  Unity,  that  Over-Soul,  within  which 
every  man's  particular  being  is  contained  and 
made  one  with  all  other ;  that  common  heart  of 
which  all  sincere  conversation  is  the  worship,  to 
which  all  right  action  is  submission ;  that  over- 
powering reality  which  confutes  our  tricks  and 


THE  OVER-SOUL  269 

talents,  and  constrains  every  one  to  pass  for  what 
he  is,  and  to  speak  from  his  character  and  not 
from  his  tongue,  and  which  evermore  tends  to 
pass  into  our  thought  and  hand  and  become  wis- 
dom and  virtue  and  power  and  beauty.  We  live 
in  succession,  in  division,  in  parts,  in  particles. 
Meantime  within  man  is  the  soul  of  the  whole; 
the~wlse  silence  ;  the  universal  beauty,  to  which 
every  part  and  particle  is  equally  related ;  the 
eternal  ONE.  And  this  deep  power  in  which  we 
exist  and  whose  beatitude  is  all  accessible  to  us, 
is  not  only  self-sufficing  and  perfect  in  every 
hour,  but  the  act  of  seeing  and  the  thing  seen, 
the  seer  and  the  spectacle,  the  subject  and  the 
object,  are  one.  We  see  the  world  piece  by  piece, 
as  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  animal,  the  tree;  but 
the  whole,  of  which  these  are  the  shining  parts, 
is  the  soul.  Only  by  the  vision  of  that  Wisdom 
can  the  horoscope  of  the  ages  be  read,  and  by 
falling  back  on  our  better  thoughts,  by  yielding 
to  the  spirit  of  prophecy  which  is  innate  in  every 
man,  we  can  know  what  it  saith.  Every  man's 
words  who  speaks  from  that  life  must  sound 
vain  to  those  who  do  not  dwell  in  the  same 
thought  on  their  own  part.  I  dare  not  speak 
for  it.  My  words  do  not  carry  its  august  sense ; 
they  fall  short  and  cold.  Only  itself  can  inspire 


270  THE  OVER-SOUL 

whom  it  will,  and  behold  !  their  speech  shall  be 
lyrical,  and  sweet,  and  universal  as  the  rising  of 
the  wind.  Yet  I  desire,  even  by  profane  words, 
if  I  may  not  use  sacred,  to  indicate  the  heaven 
of  this  deity  and  to  report  what  hints  I  have  col- 
lected of  the  transcendent  simplicity  and  energy 
of  the  Highest  Law.1 

If  we  consider  what  happens  in  conversation, 
in  reveries,  in  remorse,  in  times  of  passion,  in 
surprises,  in  the  instructions  of  dreams,  wherein 
often  we  see  ourselves  in  masquerade, — the  droll 
disguises  only  magnifying  and  enhancing  a  real 
element  and  forcing  it  on  our  distant  notice,  — 
we  shall  catch  many  hints  that  will  broaden  and 
lighten  into  knowledge  of  the  secret  of  nature.8 
All  goes  to  show  that  the  soul  in  man  is  not  an 
organ,  but  animates  and  exercises  all  the  organs  ; 
is  not  a  function,  like  the  power  of  memory, 
of  calculation,  of  comparison,  but  uses  these  as 
hands  and  feet ;  is  not  a  faculty,  but  a  light ;  is 
not  the  intellect  or  the  will,  but  the  master  of  the 
intellect  and  the  will ;  is  the  background  of  our 
being,  in  which  they  lie,  —  an  immensity  not 
possessed  and  that  cannot  be  possessed.3  From 
within  or  from  behind,  a  light  shines  through  us 
upon  things  and  makes  us  aware  that  we  are 
nothing,  but  the  lightjs  all.  A  man  is  the  faclule 


THE  OVER-SOUL  271 

of  a  temple  wherein  all  wisdom  and  all  good 
abide.  What  we  commonly  call  man,  the  eat- 
ing, drinking,  planting,  counting  man,  does  not, 
as  we  know  him,  represent  himself,  but  misre- 
presents himself.  Him  we  do  not  respect,  but 
the  soul,  whose  organ  he  is,  would  he  let  it  ap- 
pear through  his  action,  would  make  our  knees 
bend.  When  it  breathes  through  his  intellect, 
it  is  genius ;  when  it  breathes  through  his  will, 
it  is  virtue ;  when  it  flows  through  his  affection, 
it  is  love.  And  the  blindness  of  the  intellect 
begins  when  it  would  be  something  of  itself.1 
The  weakness  of  the  will  begins  when  the  indi- 
vidual would  be  something  of  himself.  All  re- 
form aims  in  some  one  particular  to  let  the  soul 
have  its  way  through  us  ;  in  other  words,  to  en- 
gage us  to  obey. 

Of  this  pure  nature  every  man  is  at  some 
time  sensible.  Language_cannot  paint  it  with 
hisjglors,  It  is.  too  subtile.  Tt  is  undefinable, 
urimeasurable ;  but  we  know  that  it  pervades 
and  contains  us.  We  know  that  all  spiritual  be- 
ing is  in  man.  Ajwise  old  jproverb  says,  "  God 
comes  to  see  us  without  bell ;  " 2  that  is,  as  there  i/ 
is  no  screen  or  ceiling  between  our  heads  and 
tHe~mhmte  heavens,  so  is  there  no  bar  or  wall 
in  the  soul,  where  man,  the  effect,  ceases,  and 


z;2  THE  OVER-SOUL 

God,  the  cause,  begins.  The  walls  are  taken 
away.  We  lie  open  on  one  side  to  the  deeps  of 
spiritual  nature,  to  the  attributes  of  God.  Jus- 
tice we  see  and  know,  Love,  Freedom,  Power. 
These  natures  no  man  ever  got  above,  but  they 
tower  over  us,  and  most  in  the  moment  when 
our  interests  tempt  us  to  wound  them. 

The  sovereignty  of  this  nature  whereof  we 
speak  is  made  known  by  its  independency  of 
those  limitations  which  circumscribe  us  on  every 
hand.  The  soul  circumscribes  all  things.  As  I 

I  *•    ""'        •—  — — —  "•  *•*•* 

have  said,  it:^ contradicts  jill  experience.  In  like 
manner  it  abolishes  time  and  space.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  senses  has  in  most  men  overpowered 
the  mind  to  that  degree  that  the  walls  of  time 
and  space  have  come  to  look  real  and  insur- 
mountable ;  and  to  speak  with  levity  of  these 
limits  is,  in  the  world,  the  sign  of  insanity.  Yet 
time  and  space  are  but  inverse  measures  of  the 
force  of  the  soul.  The  spirit  sports  with  time, — 

.,  "  Can  crowd  eternity  into  an  hour, 

^(^  Or  stretch  an  hour  to  eternity." 

We  are  often  made  to  feel  that  there  is  another 
youth  and  age  than  that  which  is  measured  from 
the  year  of  our  natural  birth.  Some  thoughts 
always  find  us  young,  and  keep  us  so.1  Such  a 
thought  is  the  love  of  the  universal  and  eternal 


THE  OVER-SOUL  273 

beauty.  Every  man  parts  from  that  contempla- 
tion with  the  feeling  that  it  rather  belongs  to 
ages  than  to  mortal  life.  The  least  activity  of 
the  intellectual  powers  redeems  us  in  a  degree 
from  the  conditions  of  time.  In  sickness,  in 
languor,  give  us  a  strain  of  poetry  or  a  profound 
sentence,  and  we  are  refreshed ;  or  produce  a 
volume  of  Plato  or  Shakspeare,  or  remind  us 
of  their  names,  and  instantly  we  come  into  a 
feeling  of  longevity.  See  how  the  deep  divine 
thought  reduces  centuries  and  millenniums,  and 
makes  itself  present  through  all  ages.  Is  the 
teaching  of  Christ  less  effective  now  than  it  was 
when  first  his  mouth  was  opened  ?  The  em- 
phasis of  facts  and  persons  in  my  thought  has 
nothing  to  do  with  time.  And  so  always  the 
soul's  scale  is  one,  the  scale  of  the  senses  and 
the  understanding  is  another.  Before  the  revela- 
tions of  the  soul,  Time,  Space  and  Nature  shrink 
away.  In  common  speech  we  refer  all  things  to 
time,  as  we  habitually  refer  the  immensely  sun- 
dered stars  to  one  concave  sphere.  And  so  we 
say  that  the  Judgment  Is  distant  or  near,  that 
the  Millennium  approaches,  that  a  day  of  cer- 
tain political,  moral,  social  reforms  is  at  hand, 
and  the  like,  when  we  mean  that  in  the  nature 
of  things  one  of  the  facts  we  contemplate  is 


274  THE  OVER-SOUL 

external  and  fugitive,  and  the  other  is  permanent 
and  connate  with  the  soul.  The  things  we  now 
esteem  fixed  shall,  one  by  one,  detach  them- 
selves likejjpe  fruit  from  our  experience,  and 
fall.  The  wind  shall  blow  them  none  knows 
whither.  The  landscape,  the  figures,  Boston, 
London,  are  facts  as  fugitive  as  any  institution 
past,  or  any  whiff  of  mist  or  smoke,  and  so  is 
society,  and  so  ;.s  the  world.  The  soul  looketh 
steadily  forwards,  creating  a  world  before  her, 
leaving  worlds  behind  her.  She  has  no  dates, 
nor  rites,  nor  persons,  nor  specialties  nor  men. 

.  The  soul  knows  only  the  soul ;   the  web  of 
events    is   the   flowing  robe   in  which   she   is 

»  clothed.1 

After  its  own  law  and  not  by  arithmetic  is  the 
rate  of  its  progress  to  be  computed.  Thejsp.ul's 
advances  are  not  made  by  gradation,  such  as  can 
be^repfesented  by  motion  in  a  straight  line,  but 
rather  by  ascension  of  state,  such  as  can  be  re- 
presented by  metamorphosis,  —  from  the  egg  to 
the  worm ,  frommeworm  to  the  fly.  Thejrrowths 
of  genius  are  of  a  certain  total  character,  that 
does  not  advance  the  elect  individual  first  over 
John,  then  Adam,  then  Richard,  and  give  to 
each  the  pain  of  discovered  inferiority, —  but  by 
every  throe  of  growth  the  man  expands  there 


THE  OVER-SOUL  275 

where  he  works,  passing,  at  each  pulsation, 
classes,  populations,  of  men.  With  each  divine 
impulse  the  mind  rends  the  thin  rinds  of  the 
visible  and  finite,  and  comes  out  into  eternity, 
and  inspires  and  expires  its  air.  It  converses 
with  truths  that  have  always  been  spoken  in  the 
world,  and  becomes  conscious  of  a  closer  sym- 
pathy with  Zeno  and  Arrian  than  with  persons 
in  the  house. 

This  is  the  law  of  moral  and  of  mental  gain. 
The  simple  rise  as  by  specific  levity  not  into  a 
particular  virtue,  but  into  the  region  of  all  the 
virtues.  They  are  in  the  spirit  which  contains 
them  all.1  The  soul  requires  purity,  but  purity 
is  not  it;  requires  justice,  but  justice  is  not  that; 
requires  beneficence,  but  is  somewhat  better;  so 
that  there  is  a  kind  of  descent  and  accommo- 
dation felt  when  we  leave  speaking  of  moral 
nature  to  urge  a  virtue  which  it  enjoins.  To  the 
well-born  child  all  the  virtues  are  natural,  and 
not  painfully  acquired.  Speak  to  his  heart,  and 
the  man  becomes  suddenly  virtuous.* 

Within  the  same  sentiment  is  the  germ  of 
intellectual  growth,  which  obeys  the  same  law. 
Those  who  are  capable  of  humility,  of  justice, 
of  love,  of  aspiration,  stand  already  on  a  platform 
that  commands  the  sciences  and  arts,  speech 


276  THE  OVER-SOUL 

and  poetry,  action  and  grace.  For  whoso  dwells 
in  this  moral  beatitude  already  anticipates  those 
special  powers  which  men  prize  so  highly.  The 
lover  has  no  talent,  no  skill,  which  passes  for 
quite  nothing  with  his  enamored  maiden,  how- 
ever little  she  may  possess  of  related  faculty ; 
and  the  heart  which  abandons  itself  to  the 
Supreme  Mind  finds  itself  related  to  all  it-- 
works,  and  will  travel  a  royal  road  to  particular 
knowledges  and  powers.  In  ascending  to  this 
primary  and  aboriginal  sentiment  we  have  come 
from  ourremote  station  on_thejcircumference 
instantaneously  to  the  centre  of  the  world, 
where,  as  in  the  closet  of  God,  we  see  causes, 
and  anticipate  the  universe,  which  is  but  a  slow 
effect.1 

One  mode  of  the  divine  teaching  is  the  incar- 
nation of  the  spirit  in  a  form,  —  in  forms,  like 
my  own.  I  live  in  society;  with  persons  who 
answer  to  thoughts  in  my  own  mind,  or  express 
a  certain  obedience  to  the  great  instincts  to 
which  I  live.  I  see  its  presence  to  them.  I  am 
certified  of  a  common  nature  ;  and  these  other 
souls,  these  separated  selves,  draw  me  as  no- 
thing else  can.  They  stir  in  me  the  new  emo- 
tions we  call  passion ;  of  love,  hatred,  fear, 
admiration,  pity ;  thence  come  conversation, 


THE  OVER-SOUL  277 

competition,  persuasion,  cities  and  war.  Per- 
sons are  supplementary  to  the  primary  teaching 
of  the  soul.  In  youth  we  are  mad  for  persons. 
Childhood  and  youth  see  all  the  world  in  them. 
But  the  larger  experience  of  man  discovers  the 
identical  nature  appearing  through  them  all. 
Persons  themselves  acquaint  us  with  the  imper-J 
sonal.  In  all  conversation  between  two  persons 
tacit  reference  is  made,  as  to  a  third  party,  to  a 
common  nature.  That  third  party  or  common 
nature  is  not  social ;  it  is  impersonal ;  is  God- 
And  so  in  groups  where  debate  is  earnest,  and 
especially  on  high  questions,  the  company  be- 
come aware  that  the  thought  rises  to  an  equal 
level  in  all  bosoms,  that  all  have  a  spiritual  pro- 
perty in  what  was  said,  as  well  as  the  sayer. 
They  all  become  wiser  than  they  were.  It  arches 
over  them  like  a  temple,  this  unity  of  thought 
in  which  every  heart  beats  with  nobler  sense  of 
power  and  duty,  and  thinks  and  acts  with  un- 
usual solemnity.  All  are  conscious  of  attaining 
to  a  higher  self-possession.  It  shines  for  all. 
There  is  a  certain  wisdom  of  humanity  which  is 
common  to  the  greatest  men  with  the  lowest, 
and  which  our  ordinary  education  often  labors 
to  silence  and  obstruct.  The  mind  is  one,  and 
the  best  minds,  who  love  truth  for  its  own 


278  THE  OVER-SOUL 

sake,  think  much  less  of  property  in  truth. 
They  accept  it  thankfully  everywhere,  and  do 
not  label  or  stamp  it  with  any  man's  name,  for 
it  is  theirs  long  beforehand,  and  from  eternity.1 
The  learned  and  the  studious  of  thought  have 
no  monopoly  of  wisdom.  Their  violence  of 
direction  in  some  degree  disqualifies  them  to 
think  truly.  We  owe  many  valuable  observa- 
tions to  people  who  are  not  very  acute  or  pro- 
found, and  who  say  the  thing  without  effort 
which  we  want  and  have  long  been  hunting  in 
vain.  The  action  of  the  soul  is  oftener  in  that 
which  is  felt  and  left  unsaid  than  in  that  which 
is  said  in  any  conversation.  It  broody  over 
every  society,  and  they  unconsciously  seek  for 
it  in  each  other.  We  know  better  than  we  do.' 
We  do  not  yet  possess  ourselves,  and  we  know 
at  the  same  time  that  we  are  much  more.  I  feel 
the  same  truth  how  often  in  my  trivial  conversa- 
tion with  my  neighbors,  that  somewhat  higher 
in  each  of  us  overlooks  this  by-play,  and  Jove 
nods  to  Jove  from  behind  each  of  us.3 

Men  descend  to  meet.  In  their  habitual  and 
mean  service  to  the  world,  for  which  they  for- 
sake their  native  nobleness,  they  resemble  those 
Arabian  sheiks  who  dwell  in  mean  houses  and 
affect  an  external  poverty,  to  escape  the  rapa- 


THE  OVER-SOUL  279 

city  of  the  Pacha,  and  reserve  all  their  display 
of  wealth  for  their  interior  and  guarded  retire- 
ments. 

As  it  is  present  in  all  persons,  so  it  is  in 
every  period  of  life.  It  is  adult  already  in  the 
infant  man.  In  my  dealing  with  my  child,  my 
Latin  and  Greek,  my  accomplishments  and  my 
money  stead  me  nothing;  but  as  much  soul  as 
I  have  avails.  If  I  am  wilful,  he  sets  his  will 
against  mine,  one  for  one,  and  leaves  me,  if  I 
please,  the  degradation  of  beating  him  by  my 
superiority  of  strength.  But  if  I  renounce  my 
will  and  act  for  the  soul,  setting  that  up  as  um- 
pire between  us  two,  out  of  his  young  eyes  looks 
the  same  soul ;  he  reveres  and  loves  with  me.1 

The  soul  is  the  perceiver  and  revealer  of 
truth.  We  know  truth  when  we  see  it,  let  scep- 
tic and  scoffer  say  what  they  choose.  Foolish 
people  ask  you,  when  you  have  spoken  what 
they  do  not  wish  to  hear,  'How  do  you  know 
it  is  truth,  and  not  an  error  of  your  own?'  We 
know  truth  when  we  see  it,  from  opinion,  as  we 
know  when  we  are  awake  that  we  are  awake.  It 
was  a  grand  sentence  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg, 
which  would  alone  indicate  the  greatness  of  that 
man's  perception, —  "It  is  no  proof  of  a  man's 
understanding  to  be  able  to  affirm  whatever  ht 


28o  THE  OVER-SOUL 

pleases  ;  but  to  be  able  to  discern  that  what  is 
true  is  true,  and  that  what  is  false  is  false,  — 
this  is  the  mark  and  character  of  intelligence." 
In  the  book  I  read,  the  good  thought  returns 
to  me,  as  every  truth  will,  the  image  of  the 
whole  soul.  To  the  bad  thought  which  I  find 
in  it,  the  same  soul  becomes  a  discerning,  sep- 
arating sword,  and  lops  it  away.  We^  are  wiser 
than  we  know.  If  we  will  not  interfere  with  our 
thought,  but  will  act  entirely,  or  see  how  the 
thing  stands  in  God,  we  know  the  particular 
thing,  and  every  thing,  and  every  man.  For 
the  Maker  of  all  things  and  all  persons  stands 
behind  us  and  casts  his  dread  omniscience  through 
us  over  things. 

But  beyond  this  recognition  of  its  own  in 
particular  passages  of  the  individual's  experi- 
ence, it  also  reveals  truth.  And  here  we  should 
seek  to  reinforce  ourselves  by  its  very  presence, 
and  to  speak  with  a  worthier,  loftier  strain  of 
that  advent.  For  the  soul's  communication  of 
truth  is  the  highest  event  in  nature,  since  it 
then  does  not  give  somewhat  from  itself,  but  it 
gives  itself,  or  passes  into  and  becomes  that  man 
whom  it  enlightens;  or  in  proportion  to  that 
truth  he  receives,  it  takes  him  to  itself. 

We  distinguish  the  announcements  of  the 


THE  OVER-SOUL  281 

soul,  its  manifestations  of  its  own  nature,  by  the 
term  Revelation.  These  are  always  attended  by 
the  emotion  of  the  sublime.  For  this  commu- 
nication is  an  influx  of  the  Divine  mind  into 
our  mind.1  It  is  an  ebb  of  the  individual  rivulet 
before  the  flowing  surges  of  the  sea  of  life. 
Every  distinct  apprehension  of  this  central  com- 
mandment agitates  men  with  awe  and  delight. 
A  thrill  passes  through  all  men  at  the  reception 
of  new  truth,  or  at  the  performance  of  a  great 
action,  which  comes  out  of  the  heart  of  nature. 
In  these  communications  the  power  to  see  is 
not  separated  from  the  will  to  do,  but  the  in- 
sight proceeds  from  obedience,  and  the  obedi- 
ence proceeds  from  a  joyful  perception.3  Every 
moment  when  the  individual  feels  himself  in- 
vaded by  it  is  memorable.  By  the  necessity  of 
our  constitution  a  certain  enthusiasm  attends  the 
individual's  consciousness  of  that  divine  pre- 
sence. The  character  and  duration  of  this  enthu- 
siasm vary  with  the  state  of  the  individual,  from 
an  ecstasy  and  trance  and  prophetic  inspiration, 
—  which  is  its  rarer  appearance,  —  to  the  faint- 
est glow  of  virtuous  emotion,  in  which  form  it 
warms,  like  our  household  fires,  all  the  families 
and  associations  of  men,  and  makes  societ) 
possible.  A  certain  tendency  to  insanity  has 


282  THE  OVER-SOUL 

always  attended  the  opening  of  the  religious 
sense  in  men,  as  if  they  had  been  "  blasted  with 
/excess  of  light."  "  The  trances  of  Socrates,  the 
"union"  of  Plotinus,  the  vision  of  Porphyry, 
the  conversion  of  Paul,  the  aurora  of  Behmen, 
the  convulsions  of  George  Fox  and  his  Quakers, 
the  illumination  of  Swedenborg,  are  of  this  kind. 
What  was  in  the  case  of  these  remarkable  per- 
sons a  ravishment,  has,  in  innumerable  instances 
in  common  life,  been  exhibited  in  less  striking 
manner.  Everywhere  the  history  of  religion  be- 
trays a  tendency  to  enthusiasm.  The  rapture 
of  the  Moravian  and  Quietist ;  the  opening  of 
•ihe  eternal  sense  of  the  Word,  in  the  language 
of  the  New  Jerusalem  Church ;  the  revival  of 
the  Calvinistic  churches  ;  the  experiences  of  the 
Methodists,  are  varying  forms  of  that  shudder 
of  awe  and  delight  with  which  the  individual 
soul  always  mingles  with  the  universal  soul. 

The  nature  of  these  revelations  is  the  same  ; 
they  are  perceptions  of  the  absolute  law.  They 
are  solutions  of  the  soul's  own  questions.  They 
do  not  answer  the  questions  which  the  under- 
standing asks.  The  soul  answers  never  by 
words,  but  by  the  thing  itself  that  is  inquired 
after.2 

Revelation  is  the  disclosure  of  the  soul.  The 


THE  OVER-SOUL  283 

popular  notion  of  a  revelation  is  that  it  is  a 
telling  of  fortunes.  In  past  oracles  of  the  soul 
the  understanding  seeks  to  find  answers  to  sen- 
sual questions,  and  undertakes  to  tell  from  God 
how  long  men  shall  exist,  what  their  hands  shall 
do  and  who  shall  be  their  company,  adding 
names  and  dates  and  places.  But  we  must  pick 
no  locks.  We  must  check  this  low  curiosity.1 
An  answer  in  words_is_de_lusiye  ;  it  is  really 
no  answer  to  the  questions  you  ask.  Do  not 
require  a  description  of  the  countries  towards 
which  you  sail.  The  description  does  not  de- 
scribe them  to  you,  and  to-morrow  you  arrive 
there  and  know  them  by  inhabiting  them.  Men 
ask  concerning  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the 
employments  of  heaven,  the  state  of  the  sinner, 
and  so  forth.  They  even  dream  that  Jesus  has 
left  replies  to  precisely  these  interrogatories. 
Never  a  moment  did  that  sublime  spirit  speak 
in  their  patois.  To  truth,  justice,  love,  the  attri- 
butes of  the  soul,  the  idea  of  immutableness 
is  essentially  associated.  Jesus,  living  in  these 
moral  sentiments,  heedless  of  sensual  fortunes, 
heeding  only  the  manifestations  of  these,  never 
made  the  separation  of  the  idea  of  duration  from 
the  essence  of  these  attributes,  nor  uttered  a 
syllable  concerning  the  duration  of  the  soul.  It 


284  THE  OVER-SOUL 

was  left  to  his  disciples  to  sever  duration  from 
the  moral  elements,  and  to  teach  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  as  a  doctrine,  and  maintain  it  by 
evidences.  The  moment  the  Horfn'np  nfLfhe 
immortality  is  separately  taught,  man  is  already 
fallen.  In  the  flowing  of  love,  in  the  adoration 
of  humility,  there  is  no^ question  of  continuance. 
No  inspired  man  ever  asks  this  question  or  con- 
descends to  these  evidences.  For  the  soul  is 
true  to  itself,  and  the  man  in  whom  it  is  shed 
abroad  cannot  wander  from  the  present,  which 
is  infinite,  to  a  future  which  would  be  finite.1 

These  questions  which  we  lust  to  ask  about 
the  future  are  a  confession  of  sin.  God  has  no 
answer  for  them.  No  answer  in  words  can  reply 
to  a  question  of  things.  It  is  not  in  an  arbitrary 
"  decree  of  God,"  but  in  the  nature  of  man,  that 
a  veil  shuts  down  on  the  facts  of  to-morrow ; 
for  the  soul  will  not  have  us  read  any  other 
cipher  than  that  of  cause  and  effect.  By  this  veil 
which  curtains  events  it  instructs  the  children 
of  men  to  live  in  to-day.  The  only  mode  of 
obtaining  an  answer  to  these  questions  of  the 
senses  is  to  forego  all  low  curiosity,  and,  accept- 
ing the  tide  of  being  which  floats  us  into  the 
secret  of  nature,  work  and  live,  work  and  live, 
and  all  unawares  the  advancing  soul  has  buiit 


THE  OVER-SOUL  285 

and  forged  for  itself  a  new  condition,  and  the 
question  and  the  answer  are  one.1 

E'y  the  same  fire,  vital,  consecrating,  celestial, 
which  burns  until  it  shall  dissolve  all  things 
into  the  waves  and  surges  of  an  ocean  of  light, 
we  see  and  know  each  other,  and  what  spirit 
each  is  of.  Who  can  tell  the  grounds  of  his 
knowledge  of  the  character  of  the  several  in- 
dividuals in  his  circle  of  friends  ?  No  man. 
Yet  their  acts  and  words  do  not  disappoint 
him.  In  that  man,  though  he  knew  no  ill  of 
him,  he  put  no  trust.  In  that  other-,  though 
they  had  seldom  met,  authentic  signs  had  yet 
passed,  to  signify  that  he  might  be  trusted  as 
one  who  had  an  interest  in  his  own  character. 
We  know  each  other  very  well,  —  which  of  us 
has  been  just  to  himself  and  whether  that  which 
we  teach  or  behold  is  only  an  aspiration  or  is 
our  honest  effort  also. 

We  are  all  discerners  of  spirits.  That  diag- 
nosis lies  aloft  in  our  life  or  unconscious  power. 
The  intercourse  of  society,  its  trade,  its  reli- 
gion, its  friendships,  its  quarrels,  is  one  wide 
judicial  investigation  of  character.  In  full  court, 
or  in  small  committee,  or  confronted  face  to 
face,  accuser  and  accused,  men  offer  themselves 
to  be  judged.  Against  their  will  they  exhibit 


286  THE  OVER-SOUL 

those  decisive  trifles  by  which  character  is  read 
But  who  judges  ?  and  what  ?  Not  our  under- 
standing. We  do  not  read  them  by  learning  or 
craft.  No  ;  the  wisdom  of  the  wise  man  con- 
sists herein,  that  he  does  not  judge  them  ;  he 
lets  them  judge  themselves  and  merely  reads 
and  records  their  own  verdict. 

By  virtue  of  this  inevitable  nature,  private 
will  is  overpowered,  and,  maugre  our  efforts  or 
our  imperfections,  your  genius  will  speak  from 
you,  and  mine  from  me.  That  which  we  are, 
we  shall  teach,  not  voluntarily  but  involuntarily. 
Thoughts  come  into  our  minds  by  avenues 
which  we  never  left  open,  and  thoughts  go  out 
of  our  minds  through  avenues  which  we  never 
voluntarily  opened.1  Character  teacher -over  our 
head.  The  infallible  index  of  true  tprogress  is 
found  in  the  tone  the  man  takes.2  Neither  his 
age,  nor  his  breeding,  nor  company,  nor  books, 
nor  actions,  nor  talents,  nor  all  together  can 
hinder  him  from  being  deferential  to  a  higher 
spirit  than  his  own.  If  he  have  not  found  his 
home  in  God,  his^  manners,  his  fprmsjof-speech, 
the  turn  of  his  sentences,  the  build,  shall  I  say, 
of  all  his  opinions  will  involuntarily  confess  it, 
let  him  brave  it  out  how  he  will.  If  he  have 
found  his  centre,  the  Deity  will  shine  through 


THE  OVER-SOUL  287 

him,  through  all  the  disguises  of  ignorance,  of 
ungenial  temperament,  of  unfavorable  circum- 
stance. The  tone  of  seeking  is  one,  and  the 
tone  of  having  is  another. 

The  great  distinction  between  teachers  sacred 
or  literary,  —  between  poets  like  Herbert,  and 
poets  like  Pope,  —  between  philosophers  like 
Spinoza,  Kant  and  Coleridge,  and  philosophers 
like  Locke,  Paley,  Mackintosh  and  Stewart, — 
between  men  of  the  world  who  are  reckoned 
accomplished  talkers,  and  here  and  there  a  fer- 
vent mystic,  prophesying  half  insane  under  the 
infinitude  of  his  thought,  —  is  that  one  class 
speak/row  within,  or  from  experience,  as  parties 
and  possessors  of  the  fact ;  and  the  other  class 
from  without,  as  spectators  merely,  or  perhaps 
as  acquainted  with  the  fact  on  the  evidence  of 
third  persons.  It  is  of  no  use  to  preach  to  me 
from  without.  I  can  do  that  too  easily  myself. 
Jesus  speaks  always  from  within,  and  in  a  de- 
gree tEat  transcends  all  others.  In  that  is  the 
miracle.  I  believe  beforehand  that  it  ought  so 
to  be.  All  men  stand  continually  in  the  expec- 
tation of  the  appearance  of  such  a  teacher.  But 
if  a  man  do  not  speak  from  within  the  veil, 
where  the  word  is  one  with  that  it  tells  of,  let 
him  lowly  confess  <t. 


288  THE  OVER-SOUL 

The  same  Omniscience  flows  into  the  intel- 
lect and  makes  what  we  call  genius.  Much  of 
the  wisdom  of  the  world  is  not  wisdom,  and 
the  most  illuminated  class  of  men  are  no  doubt 
superior  to  literary  fame,  and  are  not  writers. 
Among  the  multitude  of  scholars  and  authors 
we  feel  no  hallowing  presence ;  we  are  sensi- 
ble of  a  knack  and  skill  rather  than  of  inspira- 
tion ;  they  have  a  light  and  know  not  whence  it 
comes  and  call  it  their  own  ;  their  talent  is  some 
exaggerated  faculty,  some  overgrown  member, 
so  that  their  strength  is  a  disease.  In  these  in- 
stances the  intellectual  gifts  do  not  make  the 
impression  of  virtue,  but  almost  of  vice ;  and 
we  feel  that  a  man's  talents  stand  in  the  way  of 
his  advancement  in  truth.  But  genius  is  reli- 
gious.1 It  is  a  larger  imbibing  of  the  common 
heart.  It  is  not  anomalous,  but  more  like  and 
not  less  like  other  men.  There  is  in  all  great 
poets  a  wisdom  of  humanity  which  is  superior 
to  any  talents  they  exercise.  The  author,  the 
wit,  the  partisan,  the  fine  gentleman,  does  not 
take  place  of  the  man.  Humanity  shines  in 
Homer,  in  Chaucer,  in  Spenser,  in  Shakspeare, 
in  Milton.  They  are  content  with  truth.  They 
use  the  positive  degree.  They  seem  frigid  and 
phlegmatic  to  those  who  have  been  spiced  with 


THE  OVER-SOUL  289 

the  frantic  passion  and  violent  coloring  of  in- 
ferior but  popular  writers.  For  they  are  poets 
by  the  free  course  which  they  allow  to  the  in- 
forming soul,  which  through  their  eyes  beholds 
again  and  blesses  the  things  which  it  hath  made. 
The  soul  is  superior  to  its  knowledge,  wiser  than 
any  of  its  works.1  The  great  poet  makes  us  feel 
our  own  wealth,  and  then  we  think  less  of  his 
compositions.  His  best  communication  to  our 
mind  is  to  teach  us  to  despise  all  he  has  done. 
Shakspeare  carries  us  to  such  a  lofty  strain  of  in- 
telligent activity  as  to  suggest  a  wealth  which 
beggars  his  own  ;  and  we  then  feel  that  the  splen- 
did works  which  he  has  created,  and  which  in 
other  hours  we  extol  as  a  sort  of  self-existent 
poetry,  take  no  stronger  hold  of  real  nature  than 
the  shadow  of  a  passing  traveller  on  the  rock.* 
The  inspiration  which  uttered  itself  in  Hamlet 
and  Lear  could  utter  things  as  good  from  day  to 
day  for  ever.  Why  then  should  I  make  account 
of  Hamlet  and  Lear,  as  if  we  had  not  the  soul 
from  which  they  fell  as  syllables  from  the  tongue  ? 
This  energy  does  not  descend  into  individual 
life  on  any  other  condition  than  entire  posses- 
sion. It  comes  to  the  lowly  and  simple;  it  comes 
to  whomsoever  will  put  off  what  is  foreign  and 
proud  ;  it  comes  as  insight ;  it  comes  as  serenity 


290  THE  OVER-SOUL 

and  grandeur.  When  we  see  those  whom  it  in- 
habits, we  are  apprised  of  new  degrees  of  great- 
ness. From  that  inspiration  the  man  comes  back 
with  a  changed  tone.  He  does  not  talk  with 
men  with  an  eye  to  their  opinion.  He  tries  them. 
It  requires  of  us  to  be  plain  and  true.  The  vain 
traveller  attempts  to  embellish  his  life  bv_c[uoj:- 
ing  my  lord  and  the  prince  and  the  countess, 
who  thus  said  or  did  to  him.  The  ambitious  vul- 
gar show  you  their  spoons  and  brooches  and 
rings,  and  preserve  their  cards  and  compliments. 
The  more  cultivated,  in  their  account  of  their 
own  experience,  cull  out  the  pleasing,  poetic  cir- 
cumstance,—  the  visit  to  Rome,  the  man  of 
genius  they  saw,  the  brilliant  friend  they  know ; 
still  further  on  perhaps  the  gorgeous  landscape, 
the  mountain  lights,  the  mountain  thoughts  they 
enjoyed  yesterday,  —  and  so  seek  to  throw  a 
romantic  color  over  their  life.  But  the  soul  that 
ascends  to  worship  the  great  God  is  plain  and 
true ;  has  no  rose-color,  no  fine  friends,  no  chiv- 
alry, no  adventures  ;  does  not  want  admiration ; 
dwells  in  the  hour  that  now  is,  in  the  earnest 
experience  of  the  common  day,  —  by  reason  of 
the  present  moment  and  the  mere  trifle  having 
become  porous  to  thought  and  bibulous  of  the 
sea  of  light. 


THE  OVER-SOUL  291 

Converse  with  a  mind  that  is  grandly  simple, 
and  literature  looks  like  word-catching.  The 
simplest  utterances  are  worthiest  to  be  written, 
yet  are  they  so  cheap  and  so  things  of  course, 
that  in  the  infinite  riches  of  the  soul  it  is  like 
gathering  a  few  pebbles  off  the  ground,  or  bot- 
tling a  little  air  in  a  phial,  when  the  whole  earth 
and  the  whole  atmosphere  are  ours.  Nothing 
can  pass  there,  or  make  you  one  of  the  circle, 
but  the  casting  aside  your  trappings  and  dealing 
man  to  man  in  naked  truth,  plain  confession 
and  omniscient  affirmation. 

Souls  such  as  these  treat  you  as  gods  would, 
walk  as  gods  in  the  earth,  accepting  without  any 
admiration  your  wit,  your  bounty,  your  virtue 
even, —  say  rather  your  act  of  duty,  for  your 
virtue  they  own  as  their  proper  blood,  royal  as 
themselves,  and  over-royal,  and  the  father  of 
the  gods.  But  what  rebuke  their  plain  fraternal 
bearing  casts  on  the  mutual  flattery  with  which 
authors  solace  each  other  and  wound  them- 
selves !  These  flatter  not.  I  do  not  wonder  that 
these  men  go  to  see  Cromwell  and  Christina 
and  Charles  the  Second  and  James  the  First 
and  the  Grand  Turk.  For  they  are,  in  their 
own  elevation,  the  fellows  of  kings,  and  must 
feel  the  servile  tone  of  conversation  in  the  world 


*92  THE  OVER-SOUL 

They  must  always  be  a  godsend  to  princes,  for 
they  confront  them,  a  king  to  a  king,  without 
ducking  or  concession,  and  give  a  high  nature 
the  refreshment  and  satisfaction  of  resistance,  of 
plain  humanity,  of  even  companionship  and  of 
new  ideas.  They  leave  them  wiser  and  superior 
men.  Souls  like  these  make  us  feel  ihat  sincerity 
is  more  excellent  than  flattery.  Deal  so  plainly 
with  man  and  woman  as  to  constrain  the  ut- 
most sincerity  and  destroy  all  hope  of  trifling 
with  you.  It  is  the  highest  compliment  you  can 
pay.  Their  "  highest  praising,"  said  Milton,  "  is 
\f  not  flattery,  and  their  plainest  advice  is  a  kind 
of  praising." 

Ineffable  is  the  union  of  man  and  God  in 
every  act  of  the  soul.  The  simplest  person  who 
in  his  integrity  worships  God,  becomes  God ; 
yet  for  ever  and  ever  the  influx  of  this  better 
and  universal  self  is  new  and  unsearchable.1 
It  inspires  awe  and  astonishment.  How  dear, 
how  soothing  to  man,  arises  the  idea  of  God, 
peopling  the  lonely  place,  effacing  the  scars  of 
our  mistakes  and  disappointments  !  When  we 
have  broken  our  god  of  tradition  jind  ceased 
from  our  god  of  rhetoric,  then  may  jjod  fire 
the  heart  wTtR~His~jpresence.*  It  is  the  doubling 
of  theTTearTltseif,  nay,  the  infinite  enlargement 


THE  OVER-SOUL  293 

of  the  heart  with  a  power  of  growth  to  a  new 
infinity  on  every  side.  It  inspires  in  man  an 
infallible  trust.  He  has  not  the  conviction,  but 
the  sight,  that  the  best  is  the  true,  and  may  in 
that  thought  easily  dismiss  all  particular  uncer- 
tainties and  fears,  and  adjourn  to  the  sure  reve- 
lation of  time  the  solution  of  his  private  riddles. 
He  is  sure  that  his  welfare  is  dear  to  the  heart 
of  being.  In  the  presence  of  law  to  his  mind  he 
is  overflowed  with  a  reliance  so  universal  that 
it  sweeps  away  all  cherished  hopes  and  the  most 
stable  projects  of  mortal  condition  in  its  flood. 
He  believes  that  he  cannot  escape  from  his 
good.  The  things  that  are  really  for  thee  grav- 
itate to  thee.1  You  are  running  to  seek  your 
friend.  Let  your  feet  run,  but  your  mind  need 
not.  If  you  do  not  find  him,  will  you  not  ac- 
quiesce that  it  is  best  you  should  not  find  him  ? 
for  there  is  a  power,  which,  as  it  is  in  you,  is  in 
him  also,  and  could  therefore  very  well  bring 
you  together,  if  it  were  for  the  best.  You  are 
preparing  with  eagerness  to  go  and  render  a 
service  to  which  your  talent  and  your  taste  in- 
vite you,  the  love  of  men  and  the  hope  of  fame. 
Has  it  not  occurred  to  you  that  you  have  no  right 
to  go,  unless  you  are  equally  willing  to  be  pre- 
vented from  going  ?  *  O,  believCj  as  thou  livest, 


294  THE  OVER-SOUL 

that  every  sound  that  is  spoken  over  the  round 
world,  which  thou  oughtest  to  hear,  will  vibrate 
on  thine  ear!  Every  proverb,  every  book,  every 
byword  that  belongs  f-n  fhfp  for  ^  ™  rr>mfr>rfj 
shall  surely  come  home_through  oppn  or  wind- 
ing passages.  Every  friend  whom  not  thy  fan- 
tastic will  but  the  great  and  tender  heart  in  thee 
craveth,  shall  lock  thee  in  his  embrace.  And 
this  because  the  heart  in  thee  is  the  heart  of  all ; 
not  a  valve,  not  a  wall,  not  an  intersection  is 
there  anywhere  in  nature,  but  one  blood  rolls 
uninterruptedly  an  endless  circulation  through 
all  men,  asjhe  water  of  the  globe  is^all  one  sea, 
and,  truly  seen,  its  tide  is  one. 

TZHmanthelTTearn  the  revelation  of  all  na- 
ture and  all  thought  to  his  heart;  this,  namely; 
that  the  Highest  dwells  with  him ;  that  the 
sources  of  nature  are  in  his  own  mind,  if  the 
sentiment  of  duty  is  there.  But  if  he  would 
know  what  the  great  God  speaketh,  he  must 
'  go  into  his  closet  and  shut  the  door,'  as  Jesus 
said.  God  will  not  make  himself  manifest  to 
cowards.  He  must  greatly  listen  to  himself, 
withdrawing  himself  from  all  the  accents  of 
other  men's  devotion.  Even  their  prayers  are 
hurtful  to  him,  until  he  have  made  his  own. 
Our  religion  vulgarly  stands  on  numbers  of 


THE  OVER-SOUL  295 

believers.  Whenever  the  appeal  is  made,  —  no 
matter  how  indirectly,  —  to  numbers,  proclama- 
tion is  then  and  there  made  that  religion  is  not. 
He  that  finds  God  a  sweet  enveloping  thought 
to  him  never  counts  his  company.  When  I  sit 
in  that  presence,  who  shall  dare  to  come  in? 
When  I  rest  in  perfect  humility,  when  I  burn 
with  pure  love,  what  can  Calvin  or  Swedenborg 
say? 

It  makes  no  difference  whether  the  appeal  is 
to  numbers  or  to  one.  The  faith  that  stands 
on  authority  is  not  faith.  The  reliance  on 
authority  measures  the  decline  of  religion^  the 
withdrawal  of  the  soul.  The  position  men  have 
given  to  Jesus,  now  for  many  centuries  of  his- 
tory, is  a  position  of  authority.  It  characterizes 
themselves.  It  cannot  alter  the  eternal  facts. 
Great  is  the  soul,  and  plain.  It  is  no  flatterer, 
it  is  no  follower ;  it  never  appeals  from  itself. 
It  believes  in  itself.  Before  the  immense  possi- 
bilities of  man  all  mere  experience,  all  past  bio- 
graphy, however  spotless  and  sainted,  shrinks 
away.  Before  that  heaven  which  our  presenti- 
ments foreshow  us,  we  cannot  easily  praise  any 
form  of  life  we  have  seen  or  read  of.  We  not 
only  affirm  that  we  have  few  great  men,  but, 
absolutely  speaking,  that  we  have  none;  that 


296  THE  OVER-SOUL 

we  have  no  history,  no  record  of  any  character 
or  mode  of  living  that  entirely  contents  us. 
The  saints  and  demigods  whom  history  wor- 
ships we  are  constrained  to  accept  with  a  grain 
of  allowance.  Though  in  our  lonely  hours  we 
draw  a  new  strength  out  of  their  memory,  yet, 
pressed  on  our  attention,  as  they  are  by  the 
thoughtless  and  customary,  they  fatigue  and  in- 
vade. The  soul  gives  itself,  alone,  original  and 
pure,  to  the  Lonely,  Original  and  Pure,  who, 
on  that  condition,  gladly  inhabits,  leads  and 
speaks  through  it.  Then  is  it  glad,  young  and 
nimble.  It  is  not  wise,  but  it  sees  through  all 
things.  It  is  not  called  religious,  but  it  is  inno- 
cent. It  calls  the  light  its  own,  and  feels  that 
the  grass  grows  and  the  stone  falls  by  a  law  in- 
ferior to,  and  dependent  on,  its  nature.  Behold, 
it  saith,  I  am  born  into  the  great,  the  universal 
mind.  I,  the  imperfect,  adore  my  own  Perfect. 
I  am  somehow  receptive  of  the  great  soul,  and 
thereby  I  do  overlook  the  sun  and  the  stars  and 
feel  them  to  be  the  fair  accidents  and  effects 
which  change  and  pass.  More  and  more  the 
surges  j^  everlasting  nature  enter  into  me,  and 
I  become  public  and  human  in  my  regards  and 
actions.  So  come  I  to  live  in  thoughts  and  act 
with  energies  which  are  immortal.  Thus  rever- 


THE  OVER-SOUL  297 

ing  the  soul,  and  learning,  as  the  ancient  said, 
that  "  its  beauty  is  immense,"  man  will  come  to 
see  that  the  world  is  the  perennial  miracle  which 
the  soul  worketh,  and  be  less  astonished  at  par- 
ticular wonders ;  he  will  learn  that  there  is  no 
profane  history ;  that  all  history  is  sacred  ;  that 
the  universe  is  represented  in  an  atom,  in  a 
moment  of  time.1  He  will  weave  no  longer  a 
spotted  life<p^_shreds_jaiid  patches,  but  he  will  ^" 
live  with  a  divine  unity.  He  will  cease  from 
what  is  base  and  frivolous  in  his  life  and  be  con- 
tent with  all  places  and  with  any  service  he  can 
render.  He  will  calmly  front  the  morrow  in 
the  negligency  of  that  trust  which  carries  God 
with  it  and  so  hath  already  the  whole  future  in 
the  bottom  of  the  heart. 


X 

CIRCLES 

NATURE  centres  into_balls, 
And  her  proud  ephemerals, 
Fast  to  surface  and  outside, 
Scan  the  profile  of  the  sphere; 
Knew  they  what  that  signified« 
A  new  genesis  were  here. 


CIRCLES 

HE  eye  is  the  first  circle;  the  horizon  which 
A  it  forms  is  the  second;  and  throughout 
nature  this  primary  figure  is  repeated  without 
end.  It  is  the  highest  emblem  in  the  cipher  of 
the  world.  St.  Augustine  described  the  nature 
of  God  as  a  circle  whose  centre  was  everywhere 
and  its  circumference  nowhere.1  We  are  all  our 
lifetime  reading  the  copious  sense  of  this  first 
of  forms.  One  moral  we  have  already  deduced 
in  considering  the  circular  or  compensatory  char- 
acter of  every  human  action.  Another  analogy 
we  shall  now  trace,  that  every  action  admits  of 
being  outdone.  Our  life  is  an  apprenticeship  to 
the  truth  that  around  every  circle  another  can 
be  drawn ;  that  there  is  no  end  in  nature,  but 
every  end  is  a  beginning ;  that  there  is  always 
another  dawn  risen  on  mid-noon,  and  under 
every  deep  a  lower  deep  opens.8 

This  fact,  as  far  as  it  symbolizes  the  moral  fact 
of  the  Unattainable,  the  flying  Perfect,  around 
which  the  hands  of  man  can  never  meet,  at  once 
the  inspirer  and  the  condemner  of  every  success, 
may  conveniently  serve  us  to  connect  many  illus- 
trations of  human  power  in  every  department. 


302  CIRCLES 

There  are  no  fixtures  in  nature.  The  universe 
is  fluid  and  volatile.  Permanence  is  but  a  word 
of  degrees.  Our  globe  seen  by  God  is  a  trans- 
parent law,  not  a  mass  of  facts.  The  law  dis- 
solves the  fact  and  holds  it  fluid.'  Our  culture 
is  the  predominance  of  an  idea  which  draws 
after  it  this  train  of  cities  and  institutions.  Let 
us  rise  into  another  idea ;  they  will  disappear. 
The  Greek  sculpture  is  all  melted  away,  as  if  it 
had  been  statues  of  ice ;  here  and  there  a  soli- 
tary figure  or  fragment  remaining,  as  we  see 
flecks  and  scraps  of  snow  left  in  cold  dells  and 
mountain  clefts  in  June  and  July.  For  the  genius 
that  created  it  creates  now  somewhat  else.  The 
Greek  letters  last  a  little  longer,  but  are  already 
passing  under  the  same  sentence  and  tumbling 
into  the  inevitable  pit  which  the  creation  of  new 
thought  opens  for  all  that  is  old.  The  new  con- 
tinents are  built  out  of  the  ruins  of  an  old  planet; 
the  new  races  fed  out  of  the  decomposition 
of  the  foregoing.  New  arts  destroy  the  old.  See 
the  investment  of  capital  in  aqueducts,  made 
useless  by  hydraulics;  fortifications,  by  gun- 
powder; roads  and  canals,  by  railways;  sails, 
by  steam  ;  steam  by  electricity. 

You  admire  this  tower  of  granite,  weathering 
the  hurts  of  so  many  ages.  Yet  a  little  waving 


CIRCLES  303 

hand  built  this  huge  wall,  and  that  which  builds 
is  better  than  that  which  is  built.  The  hand  that 
built  can  topple  it  down  much  faster.  Better 
than  the  hand  and  nimbler  was  the  invisible 
thought  which  wrought  through  it ;  and  thus 
ever,  behind  the  coarse  effect,  is  a  fine  cause, 
which,  being  narrowly  seen,  is  itself  the  effect 
of  a  finer  cause.  Everything  looks  permanent 
until  its  secret  is  known.  A  rich  estate  appears 
to  women  a  firm  and  lasting  fact ;  to  a  merchant, 
one  easily  created  out  of  any  materials,  and  easily 
lost.  An  orchard,  good  tillage,  good  grounds, 
seem  a  fixture,  like  a  gold  mine,  or  a  river,  to  a 
citizen  ;  but  to  a  large  farmer,  not  much  more 
fixed  than  the  state  of  the  crop.  Nature  looks 
provokingly  stable  and  secular,  but  it  has  a  cause 
like  all  the  rest;  and  when  once  I  comprehend 
that,  will  these  fields  stretch  so  immovably  wide, 
these  leaves  hang  so  individually  considerable  ? 
Permanence  is  a  word  of  degrees.  Every  thing 
is  medial.  Moons  are  no  more  bounds  to  spir-  A 
itual  power  than  bat-balls.1 

The  key  to  every  man  is  his  thought.  Sturdy 
and  defying  though  he  look,  he  has  a  helm  which 
he  obeys,  which  is  the  idea  after  which  all  his 
facts  are  classified.  He  can  only  be  reformed  by 
showing  him  a  new  idea  which  commands  his 


304  CIRCLES 

own.  The  life  of  man  is  a  self-evolving  circle, 
which,  from  a  ring  imperceptibly  small,  rushes 
on  all  sides  outwards  to  new  and  larger  circles, 
and  that  without  end.1  The  extent  to  which  this 
generation  of  circles,  wheel  without  wheel,  will  go, 
depends  on  the  force  or  truth  of  the  individual 
soul.  For  it  is  the  inert  effort  of  each  thought, 
having  formed  itself  into  a  circular  wave  of  cir- 
cumstance, —  as  for  instance  an  empire,  rules  of 
an  art,  a  local  usage,  a  religious  rite,  —  to  heap 
itself  on  that  ridge  and  to  solidify  and  hem  in 
the  life.  But  if  the  soul  is  quick  and  strong  it 
bursts  over  that  boundary  on  all  sides  and  ex- 
pands another  orbit  on  the  great  deep,  which 
also  runs  up  into  a  high  wave,  with  attempt 
again  to  stop  and  to  bind.  But  the  heart  refuses 
to  be  imprisoned ;  in  its  first  and  narrowest 
pulses  it  already  tends  outward  with  a  vast  force 
and  to  immense  and  innumerable  expansions.* 
Every  ultimate  fact  is  only  the  first  of  a  new 
series.  Every  general  law  only  a  particular  fact 
of  some  more  general  law  presently  to  disclose 
itself.  There  is  no  outside,  no  inclosing  wall,  no 
circumference  to  us.  The  man  finishes  his  story, 
—  how  good  !  how  final !  how  it  puts  a  new  face 
on  all  things !  He  fills  the  sky.  Lo !  on  the  other 
side  rises  also  a  man  and  draws  a  circle  around 


CIRCLES  305 

the  circle  we  had  just  pronounced  the  outline  of 
the  sphere.  Then  already  is  our  first  speaker 
not  man,  but  only  a  first  speaker.  His  only  re- 
dress is  forthwith  to  draw  a  circle  outside  of  his 
antagonist.  And  so  men  do  by  themselves.  The 
result  of  to-day,  which  haunts  the  mind  and  can- 
not be  escaped,  will  presently  be  abridged  into 
a  word,  and  the  principle  that  seemed  to  explain 
nature  will  itself  be  included  as  one  example  of  a 
bolder  generalization.  In  the  thought  of  to-mor- 
row there  is  a  power  to  upheave  all  thy  creed,  all 
the  creeds,  all  the  literatures  of  the  nations,  and 
marshal  thee  to  a  heaven  which  no  epic  dream 
has  yet  depicted.  Every  man  is  not  so  much  a 
workman  in  the  world  as  he  is  a  suggestion  of 
that  he  should  be.  Men  walk  as  prophecies  of 
the  next  age. 

Step  by  step  we  scale  this  mysterious  ladder ; 
the  steps  are  actions,  the  new  prospect  is  power. 
Every  several  result  is  threatened  and  judged  by 
that  which  follows.  Every  one  seems  to  be  con- 
tradicted by  the  new ;  it  is  only  limited  by  the 
new.  The  new  statement  is  always  hated  by 
the  old,  and,  to  those  dwelling  in  the  old,  comes 
like  an  abyss  of  scepticism.  But  the  eye  soon 
gets  wonted  to  it,  for  the  eye  and  it  are  effects 
of  one  cause  ;  then  its  innocency  and  benefit 


306  CIRCLES 

appear,  and  presently,  ail  its  energy  spent,  it 
pales  and  dwindles  before  the  revelation  of  the 
new  hour. 

Fear  not  the  new  generalization.  Does  the 
fact  look  crass  and  material,  threatening  to  de- 
grade thy  theory  of  spirit?  Resist  it  not;  it 
goes  to  refine  and  raise  thy  theory  of  matter  just 
as  much. 

There  are  no  fixtures  to  men,  if  we  appeal  to 
consciousness.  Every  man  supposes  himself  not 
to  be  fully  understood ;  and  if  there  is  any  truth 
in  him,  if  he  rests  at  last  on  the  divine  soul,  I 
see  not  how  it  can  be  otherwise.  The  last  cham- 
ber, the  last  closet,  he  must  feel  was  never 
opened ;  there  is  always  a  residuum  unknown, 
unanalyzable.  That  is,  every  man  believes  that 
he  has  a  greater  possibility. 

Our  moods  do  not  believe  in  each  other. 
To-day  I  am  full  of  thoughts  and  can  write  what 
I  please.  I  see  no  reason  why  I  should  not 
have  the  same  thought,  the  same  power  of  ex- 
pression, to-morrow.  What  I  write,  whilst  I 
write  it,  seems  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world ;  but  yesterday  I  saw  a  dreary  vacuity  in 
this  direction  in  which  now  I  see  so  much ;  and 
a  month  hence,  I  doubt  not,  I  shall  wonder 
who  he  was  that  wrote  so  many  continuous 


CIRCLES  307 

pages.  Alas  for  this  infirm  faith,  this  will  not 
strenuous,  this  vast  ebb  of  a  vast  flow !  I  am 
God  in  nature ;  I  am  a  weed  by  the  wall. 

The  continual  effort  to  raise  himself  above 
himself,  to  work  a  pitch  above  his  last  height, 
betrays  itself  in  a  man's  relations.1  We  thirst  for 
approbation,  yet  cannot  forgive  the  approver. 
The  sweet  of  nature  is  love;  yet  if  I  have  a 
friend  I  am  tormented  by  my  imperfections. 
The  love  of  me  accuses  the  other  party.  If  he 
were  high  enough  to  slight  me,  then  could  I 
love  him,  and  rise  by  my  affection  to  new 
heights.  A  man's  growth  is  seen  in  the  succes- 
sive choirs  of  his  friends.  For  every  friend 
tyhom  he  loses  for  truth,  he  gains  a  better.  I 
thought  as  I  walked  in  the  woods  and  mused 
on  my  friends,  why  should  I  play  with  them  this 
game  of  idolatry  ?  I  know  and  see  too  well, 
when  not  voluntarily  blind,  the  speedy  limits  of 
persons  called  high  and  worthy.  Rich,  noble 
and  great  they  are  by  the  liberality  of  our  speech, 
but  truth  is  sad.  O  blessed  Spirit,  whom  I 
forsake  for  these,  they  are  not  thou  !  Every 
personal  consideration  that  we  allow  costs  us 
heavenly  state.  We  sell  the  thrones  of  angels 
for  a  short  and  turbulent  pleasure.2 

How  often  must  we  learn  this  lesson  ?    Men 


308  CIRCLES 

cease  to  interest  us  when  we  find  their  limita- 
tions. The  only  sin  is  limitation.  As  soon  as 
you  once  come  up  with  a  man's  limitations,  it 
is  all  over  with  him.  Has  he  talents  ?  has  he 
enterprise?  has  he  knowledge?  It  boots  not. 
Infinitely  alluring  and  attractive  was  he  to  you 
yesterday,  a  great  hope,  a  sea  to  swim  in ;  now, 
you  have  found  his  shores,  found  it  a  pond,  and 
you  care  not  if  you  never  see  it  again. 

Each  new  step  we  take  in  thought  reconciles 
twenty  seemingly  discordant  facts,  as  expressions 
of  one  law.  Aristotle  and  Plato  are  reckoned 
the  respective  heads  of  two  schools.  A  wise  man 
will  see  that  Aristotle  platonizes.  By  going  one 
step  farther  back  in  thought,  discordant  opinions 
are  reconciled  by  being  seen  to  be  two  extremes 
of  one  principle,  and  we  can  never  go  so  far 
back  as  to  preclude  a  still  higher  vision.1 

Beware  when  the  great  God  lets  loose  a 
thinker  on  this  planet.  Then  all  things  are  at 
risk.  It  is  as  when  a  conflagration  has  broken 
out  in  a  great  city,  and  no  man  knows  what  is 
safe,  or  where  it  will  end.  There  is  not  a  piece 
of  science  but  its  flank  may  be  turned  to-mor- 
row; there  is  not  any  literary  reputation,  not 
the  so-called  eternal  names  of  fame,  that  may 
not  be  revised  and  condemned.  The  very  hopes 


CIRCLES  309 

of  man,  the  thoughts  of  his  heart,  the  religion 
of  nations,  the  manners  and  morals  of  mankind 
are  all  at  the  mercy  of  a  new  generalization. 
Generalization  is  always  a  new  influx  of  the 
divinity  into  the  mind.  Hence  the  thrill  that 
attends  it. 

Valor  consists  in  the  power  of  self-recovery, 
so  that  a  man  cannot  have  his  flank  turned,  can- 
not be  out-generalled,  but  put  him  where  you 
will,  he  stands.  This  can  only  be  by  his  pre- 
ferring truth  to  his  past  apprehension  of  truth, 
and  his  alert  acceptance  of  it  from  whatever 
quarter;  the  intrepid  conviction  that  his  laws> 
his  relations  to  society,  his  Christianity,  his 
world,  may  at  any  time  be  superseded  and  de- 
cease. 

There  are  degrees  in  idealism.  We  learn  first 
to  play  with  it  academically,  as  the  magnet  was 
once  a  toy.  Then  we  see  in  the  heyday  of  youth 
and  poetry  that  it  may  be  true,  that  it  is  true  in 
gleams  and  fragments.  Then  its  countenance 
waxes  stern  and  grand,  and  we  see  that  it  must 
be  true.  It  now  shows  itself  ethical  and  prac- 
tical. We  learn  that  God  is ;  that  he  is  in  me ; 
and  that  all  things  are  shadows  of  him.  The 
idealism  of  Berkeley  is  only  a  crude  statement 
of  the  idealism  of  Jesus,  and  that  again  is  a 


3io  CIRCLES 

crude  statement  of  the  fact  that  all  nature  is  the 
rapid  efflux  of  goodness  executing  and  organiz- 
ing itself.  Much  more  obviously  is  history  and 
the  state  of  the  world  at  any  one  time  directly 
dependent  on  the  intellectual  classification  then 
existing  in  the  minds  of  men.  The  things  which 
are  dear  to  men  at  this  hour  are  so  on  account 
of  the  ideas  which  have  emerged  on  their  men- 
tal horizon,  and  which  cause  the  present  order 
of  things,  as  a  tree  bears  its  apples.  A  new  de- 
gree of  culture  would  instantly  revolutionize 
the  entire  system  of  human  pursuits. 

Conversation  is  a  game  of  circles.  In  conver- 
sation we  pluck  up  the  termini  which  bound  the 
common  of  silence  on  every  side.  The  parties 
are  not  to  be  judged  by  the  spirit  they  partake 
aad  even  express  under  this  Pentecost.  To- 
morrow they  will  have  receded  from  this  high- 
water  mark.  To-morrow  you  shall  find  them 
stooping  under  the  old  pack-saddles.  Yet  let 
us  enjoy  the  cloven  flame  whilst  it  glows  on 
our  walls.  When  each  new  speaker  strikes  a 
new  light,  emancipates  us  from  the  oppression 
of  the  last  speaker  to  oppress  us  with  the  great- 
ness and  exclusiveness  of  his  own  thought,  then 
yields  us  to  another  redeemer,  we  seem  to  re- 
cover our  rights,  to  become  men.  O,  what 


CIRCLES  311 

truths  profound  and  executable  only  in  ages 
and  orbs,  are  supposed  in  the  announcement 
of  every  truth  !  In  common  hours,  society 
sits  cold  and  statuesque.  We  all  stand  waiting, 
empty,  —  knowing,  possibly,  that  we  can  be 
full,  surrounded  by  mighty  symbols  which  are 
not  symbols  to  us,  but  prose  and  trivial  toys. 
Then  cometh  the  god  and  converts  the  statues 
into  fiery  men,  and  by  a  flash  of  his  eye  burns 
up  the  veil  which  shrouded  all  things,  and  the 
meaning  of  the  very  furniture,  of  cup  and  sau- 
cer, of  chair  and  clock  and  tester,  is  manifest.  The 
facts  which  loomed  so  large  in  the  fogs  of  yes- 
terday, —  property,  climate,  breeding,  personal 
beauty  and  the  like,  have  strangely  changed 
their  proportions.  All  that  we  reckoned  settled 
shakes  and  rattles ;  and  literatures,  cities,  cli- 
mates, religions,  leave  their  foundations  and  dance 
before  our  eyes.1  And  yet  here  again  seethe  swift 
circumscription  !  Good  as  is  discourse,  silence 
is  better,  and  shames  it.  The  length  of  the  dis- 
course indicates  the  distance  of  thought  betwixt 
the  speaker  and  the  hearer.  If  they  were  at  a 
perfect  understanding  in  any  part,  no  words 
would  be  necessary  thereon.  If  at  one  in  all 
parts,  no  words  would  be  suffered. 

Literature  is  a  point  outside  of  our  hodiernal 


312  CIRCLES 

circle  through  which  a  new  one  may  be  de- 
scribed. The  use  of  literature  is  to  afford  us  a 
platform  whe~nce  we  may~~command  a  view  of 
our  present  life,  a  purchase  by  which  we  may 
move  it.  We  fill  ourselves  with  ancient  learn- 
ing, install  ourselves  the  best  we  can  in  Greek, 
in  Punic,  in  Roman  houses,  only  that  we  may 
wiselier  see  French,  English  and  American 
houses  and  modes  of  living.  In  like  manner 
we  see  literature  best  from  the  midst  of  wild 
nature,  or  from  the  din  of  affairs,  or  from  a  high 
religion.  The  field  cannot  be  well  seen  from 
within  the  field.  The  astronomer  must  have 
his  diameter  of  the  earth's  orbit  as  a  base  to 
find  the  parallax  of  any  star.1 

Therefore  we  value  the  poet.  All  the  ar- 
gument and  all  the  wisdom  is  not  in  the  en- 
cyclopaedia, or  the  treatise  on  metaphysics,  or 
the  Body  of  Divinity,  but  in  the  sonnet  or  the 
play.  In  my  daily  work  I  incline  to  repeat  my 
old  steps,  and  do  not  believe  in  remedial  force, 
in  the  power  of  change  and  reform.  But  some 
Petrarch  or  Ariosto,  filled  with  the  new  wine 
of  his  imagination,  writes  me  an  ode  or  a  brisk 
romance,  full  of  daring  thought  and  action.  He 
smites  and  arouses  me  with  his  shrill  tones, 
breaks  up  my  whole  chain  of  habits,  and  I  open 


CIRCLES  313 

my  eye  on  my  own  possibilities.  He  claps 
wings  to  the  sides  of  all  the  solid  old  lumber  of 
the  world,  and  I  am  capable  once  more  of  choos- 
ing a  straight  path  in  theory  and  practice. 

We  have  the  same  need  to  command  a  view 
of  the  religion  of  the  world.  We  can  never  see 
Christianity  from  the  catechism :  —  from  the  pas- 
tures, from  a  boat  in  the  pond,  from  amidst  the 
songs  of  wood-birds  we  possibly  may.  Cleansed 
by  the  elemental  light  and  wind,  steeped  in  the 
sea  of  beautiful  forms  which  the  field  offers  us, 
we  may  chance  to  cast  a  right  glance  back  upon 
biography.  Christianity  is  rightly  dear  to  the 
best  of  mankind  ;  yet  was  there  never  a  young 
philosopher  whose  breeding  had  fallen  into  the 
Christian  church  by  whom  that  brave  text  of 
Paul's  was  not  specially  prized  :  "  Then  shall 
also  the  Son  be  subject  unto  Him  who  put  all 
things  under  him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all." 
Let  the  claims  and  virtues  of  persons  be  never 
so  great  and  welcome,  the  instinct  of  man  presses 
eagerly  onward  to  the  impersonal  and  illimit- 
able, and  gladly  arms  itself  against  the  dogma- 
tism of  bigots  with  this  generous  word  out  of 
the  book  itself.1 

The  natural  world  may  be  conceived  of  as  a 
system  of  concentric  circles,  and  we  now  and 


3i4  CIRCLES 

then  detect  in  nature  slight  dislocations  which 
apprise  us  that  this  surface  on  which  we  now 
stand  is  not  fixed,  but  sliding.  These  manifold 
tenacious  qualities,  this  chemistry  and  vegeta- 
tion, these  metals  and  animals,  which  seem  to 
stand  there  for  their  own  sake,  are  means  and 
methods  only,  —  are  words  of  God,  and  as  fu- 
gitive as  other  words.1  Has  the  naturalist  or 
chemist  learned  his  craft,  who  has  explored  the 
gravity  of  atoms  and  the  elective  affinities,  who 
has  not  yet  discerned  the  deeper  law  whereof 
this  is  only  a  partial  or  approximate  statement, 
namely  that  like  draws  _to  like,  and  that  the 
-goods  which  belong  to  you  gravitate  to  you  and 
need  not  be  pursued  with  pains  and  cost  ? 2  Yet 
is  that  statement  approximate  also,  and  not 
final.  Omnipresence  is  a  higher  fact.  Not 
through  subtle  subterranean  channels  need 
friend  and  fact  be  drawn  to  their  counterpart, 
but,  rightly  considered,  these  things  proceed 
from  the  eternal  generation  of  the  soul.  Cause 
and  effect  are  two  sides* of  one  fact. 

The  same  law  of  eternal  procession  ranges  all 
that  we  call  the  virtues,  and  extinguishes  each  in 
the  light  of  a  better.  The  great  man  will  not  be 
prudent  in  the  popular  sense ;  all  his  rjrudence 
will  be  so  much  deduction  from  his  grandeur. 


CIRCLES  315 

But  it  behooves  each  to  see,  when  he  sacrifices 
prudence,  to  what  god  he  devotes  it ;  if  to  ease 
and  pleasure,  he  had  better  be  prudent  still ;  if 
to  a  great  trust,  he  can  well  spare  his  mule  and 
panniers  who  has  a  winged  chariot  instead. 
Geoffrey  draws  on  his  boots  to  go  through  the 
woods,  that  his  feet  may  be  safer  from  the  bite 
of  snakes  ;  Aaron  never  thinks  of  such  a  peril. 
In  many  years  neither  is  harmed  by  such  an 
accident.  Yet  it  seems  to  me  that  with  every 
precaution  you  take  against  such  an  evil  you 
put  yourself  into  the  power  of  the  evil.  I  sup- 
pose that  the  highest  prudence  is  the  lowest 
prudence.  Is  this  too  sudden  a  rushing  from 
the  centre  to  the  verge  of  our  orbit  ?  Think 
how  many  times  we  shall  fall  back  into  pitiful 
calculations  before  we  take  up  our  rest  in  the 
great  sentiment,  or  make  the  verge  of  to-day 
the  new  centre.  Besides,  your  bravest  sentiment 
is  familiar  to  the  humblest  men.  The  poor  and 
the  low  have_their  way  of  expressing  the  Jast 
facts  of  philosophy  as  well  as  you.  "  Blessed  be 
nothing  and  "  The  worse  things  are,  fhe  bet- 
ter they  are  '  are  proverbsjwhich  express  the 
transcendentalism  of  comrnonJKfe. 
,  One  man's  justice  is  another's  injustice ;  one 
I  man's  beauty  another's  ugliness ;  one  man's 


316  CIRCLES 

dom  another's  folly ;  as  one  beholds  the  same 
objects  from  a  higher  point.  One  man  thinks 
justice  consists  in  paying  debts,  and  has  no 
measure  in  his  abhorrence  of  another  who  is 
very  remiss  in  this  duty  and  makes  the  creditor 
wait  tediously.  But  that  second  man  has  his 
own  way  of  looking  at  things  ;  asks  himself 
Which  debt  must  I  pay  first,  the  debt  to  the 
rich,  or  the  debt  to  the  poor?  the  debt  of 
money,  or  the  debt  of  thought  to  mankind,  of 
genius  to  nature  ?  For  you,  O  broker,  there  is 
no  other  principle  but  arithmetic.  For  me,  com- 
merce is  of  trivial  import ;  love,  faith,  truth  of 
character,  the  aspiration  of  man,  these  are  sa- 
cred ;  nor  can  I  detach  one  duty,  like  you,  from 
all  other  duties,  and  concentrate  my  forces  me- 
chanically on  the  payment  of  moneys.  Let  me 
live  onward ;  you  shall  find  that,  though  slower, 
the  progress  of  my  character  will  liquidate  all 
these  debts  without  injustice  to  higher  claims. 
If  a  man  should  dedicate  himself  to  the  pay- 
ment of  notes,  would  not  this  be  injustice? 
Does  he  owe  no  debt  but  money  ?  And  are  all 
claims  on  him  to  be  postponed  to  a  landlord's 
or  a  banker's  ? 

There  is   no  virtue  which  is  final ;  all  are 
initial.   The  virtues  of  society  are  vices  of  the 


CIRCLES  319 

saint.  The  terror  of  reform  is  the  discovery  that 
we  must  cast  away  our  virtues,  or  what  we  have 
always  esteemed  such,  into  the  same  pit  that 
has  consumed  our  grosser  vices :  — 
««  Forgive  his  crimes,  forgive  his  virtues  too, 
Those  smaller  faults,  half  converts  to  the  right."  * 

It  is  the  highest  power  of  divine  moments 
that  they  abolish  our  contritions  also.  I  ac- 
cuse myself  of  sloth  and  unprofitableness  day 
by  day ;  but  when  these  wa.ves  of  Godjflow  into 
me  I  no  longer  reckon  lost  time.  I  no  longer 
poorly  compute  my  possible  achievement  by 
what  remains  to  me  of  the  month  or  the  year ; 
for  these  moments  confer  a  sort  of  omnipre- 
sence and  omnipotence  which  asks  nothing  of 
duration,  but  sees  that  the  energy  of  the  mind 
is  commensurate  with  the  work  to  be  done,  with- 
out time. 

And  thus,  O  circular  philosopher.  I  hear 
some  reader  exclaim,  you  have  arrived  at  a  fine 
Pyrrhonism,*  at  an  equivalence  and  indifferency 
of  all  actions,  and  would  fain  teach  us  that  if 
we  are  Jrue>  forsooth,  our  crimes  may  be  lively 
stones  out  of  which  we  shall  construct  the  tem- 
ple of  the  true  God ! 

I  am  not  careful  to  justify  myself.  I  own  I 
am  gladdened  by  seeing  the  predominance  of 


3i8  CIRCLES 

the  saccharine  principle  throughout  vegetable 
nature,  and  not  less  by  beholding  in  morals  that 
unrestrained  inundation  of  the  principle  of  good 
into  every  chink  and  hole  that  selfishness  has 
left  open,  yea  into  selfishness  and  sin  itself;  so 
that  no  evil  is  pure,  nor  hell  itself  without  its 
extreme  satisfactions.1  But  lest  I  should  mislead 
any  when  I  have  my  own  head  and  obey  my 
whims,  let  me  remind  the  reader  that  I  am  only 
an  experimenter.  Do  not  set  the  least  value  on 
what  I  do,  or  the  least  discredit  on  what  I  do 
not,  as  if  1  pretended  to  settle  any  thing  as  true 
or  false.  I  unsettle  all  things.  No  facts  are  to 
me  sacred ;  none  are  profane ;  I  simply  experi- 
ment, an  endless  seeker  with  no  Past  at  my 
back.1 

Yet  this  incessant  movement  and  progression 
which  all  things  partake  could  never  become 
sensible  to  us  but  by  contrast  to  sjome  principle 
of  fixture  or  stability  in  the  soul.  Whilst  the 
eternal  generation  of  circles  proceeds,  the  eternal 
generator  abides.  That  central  life  is  somewhat 
superior  to  creation,  superior  to  knowledge  and 
thought,  and  contains  all  its  circles.  Forever  it 
labors  to  create  iTnfeTarKPth ought  as  large  and 
excellent  as  itself,  but  in  vain,  for  that  which  is 
made  instructs  how  to  make  a  better. 


CIRCLES  319 

Thus  there  is  no  sleep,  no  pause,  no  preserva- 
tion, but  all  things  renew,  germinate  and  spring. 
Why  should  we  import  rags  and  relics  into  the 
new  hour  ?  Nature  abhors  the  old,  and  old  age 
seems  the  only  disease ;  all  others  run  into  this 
one.  We  call  it  by  many  names,  —  fever,  in- 
temperance, insanity,  stupidity  and  crime  ;  they 
are  all  forms  of  old  age ;  they  are  rest,  conser- 
vatism, appropriation,  inertia ;  not  newness,  not 
the  way  onward.  We  grizzle  every  day.  I  see 
no  need  of  it.  Whilst  we  converse  with  what  is 
above  us,  we  do  not  grow  old,  but  grow  young. 
Infancy,  youth,  receptive,  aspiring,  with  reli- 
gious eye  looking  upward,  counts  itself  nothing 
and  abandons  itself  to  the  instruction  flowing 
from  all  sides.  But  the  man  and  woman  of  sev- 
enty assume  to  know  all,  they  have  outlived 
their  hope,  they  renounce  aspiration,  accept  the 
actual  for  the  necessary  and  talk  down  to  the 
young.  Let  them  then  become  organs  of  the 
Holy  Ghost;  let  them  be  lovers;  let  them  be- 
hold truth ;  and  their  eyes  are  uplifted,  their 
wrinkles  smoothed,  they  are  perfumed  again 
with  hope  and  power.1  This  old  age  ought  not 
to  creep  on  a  human  mind.  In  nature  every 
moment  is  new ;  the  past  is  always  swallowed 
and  forgotten  ;  the  coming  only  is  sacred.  No- 


320  CIRCLES 

thing  is  secure  but  life,  transition,  the  energizing 
spirit.  No  love  can  be  bound  by  oath  or  cove- 
nant to  secure  it  against  a  higher  love.  No  truth 
so  sublime  but  it  may  be  trivial  to-morrow  in  the 
light  of  new  thoughts.  People  wish  to  be  set- 
tled ;  only  as  far  as  they  are  unsettled  is  there 
any  hope  for  them. 

Life  is  a  series  of  surprises.  We  do  not  guess 
to-day  the  mood,  the  pleasure,  the  power  of  to- 
morrow, when  we  are  building  up  our  being.  Of 
lower  states,  of  acts  of  routine  and  sense,  we  can 
tell  somewhat ;  but  the  masterpieces  of  God,  the 
total  growths  and  universal  movements  of  the 
soul,  he  hideth ;  they  are  incalculable.  I  can 
know  that  truth  is  divine  and  helpful ;  but  how 
it  shall  help  me  I  can  have  no  guess,  for  so  to  be 
is  the  sole  inlet  of  so  to  know.  The  new  position 
of  the  advancing  man  has  all  the  powers  of  the 
old,  yet  has  them  all  new.  It  carries  in  its  bosom 
all  the  energies  of  the  past,  yet  is  itself  an  ex- 
halation of  the  morning.  I  cast  away  in  this  new 
moment  all  my  once  hoarded  knowledge,  as  va- 
cant and  vain.  Now  for  the  first  time  seem  I  to 
know  any  thing  rightly.  The  simplest  words,  — 
we  do  not  know  what  they  mean  except  when  we 
love  and  aspire. 

The  difference  between  talents  and  character 


CIRCLES  321 

is  adroitness  to  keep  the  old  and  trodden  round, 
and  power  and  courage  to  make  a  new  road  to 
new  and  better  goals.  Character  makes  an  over- 
powering present ;  a  cheerful,  determined  hour, 
which  fortifies  all  the  company  by  making  them 
see  that  much  is  possible  and  excellent  that  was 
not  thought  of.  Character  dulls  the  impression 
of  particular  events.  When  we  see  the  conqueror 
we  do  not  think  much  of  any  one  battle  or  suc- 
cess. We  see  that  we  had  exaggerated  the  dif- 
ficulty. It  was  easy  to  him.  The  great  man  is 
not  convulsible  or  tormentable  ;  events  pass  over 
him  without  much  impression.  People  say  some- 
times, t  See  what  I  have  overcome  ;  see  how 
cheerful  I  am ;  see  how  completely  I  have  tri- 
umphed over  these  black  events.'  Not  if  they 
still  remind  me  of  the  black  event.  True  con- 
quest is  the  causing  the  calamity  to  fade  and  dis- 
appear as  an  early  cloud  of  insignificant  result  in 
a  history  so  large  and  advancing. 

The  one  thing  which  we  seek  with  insatiable 
desire  is  to  forget  ourselves,  to  be  surprised  out 
of  our  propriety,  to  lose  our  sempiternal  memory 
and  to  do  something  without  knowing  how  or 
why;  in  short  to  draw  a  new  circle.  Nothing 
great  was  ever  achieved  without  enthusiasm. 
The  way  of  life  is  wonderful ;  it  is  by  abandon- 


322  CIRCLES 

ment.  The  great  moments  of  history  are  the 
facilities  of  performance  through  the  strength 
of  ideas,  as  the  works  of  genius  and  religion. 
"  A  man,"  said  Oliver  Cromwell,  "  never  rises 
so  high  as  when  he  knows  not  whither  he  is 
going."  Dreams  and  drunkenness,  the  use  of 
opium  and  alcohol  are  the  semblance  and  coun- 
terfeit of  this  oracular  genius,  and  hence  their 
dangerous  attraction  for  men.  For  the  like  rea- 
son they  ask  the  aid  of  wild  passions,  as  in  gam- 
ing and  war,  to  ape  in  some  manner  these  flames 
and  generosities  of  the  heart. 


XI 

INTELLECT 

Go,  speed  the  stars  of  Thought 
On  to  their  shining  goals;  — 
The  sower  scatters  broad  his  seed; 
The  wheat  thou  strew' st  be  sods. 


INTELLECT 

EVERY  substance  is  nej2£livelyjeleciric  to 
that  which  stands  above  it  in  the  chemical 
tables,  positively  to  that  which  stands  below  it. 
Water  dissolves  wood  and  iron  and  salt ;  air  dis- 
solves water ;  electric  fire  dissolves  air,  but  the 
intellect  dissolves  fire,  gravity,  laws,  method,  and 
the  subtlest  unnamed  relations  of  nature  in  its 
resistless  menstruum.1  Intellect  lies  behind  gen- 
ius, which  is  intellect  constructive.  Intellect  is 
the  simple  power  anterior  to  all  action  or  con- 
struction. Gladly  would  I  unfold  in  calm  de- 
grees a  natural  history  of  the  intellect,  but  what 
man  has  yet  been  able  to  mark  the  steps  and 
boundaries  of  that  transparent  essence  ?  The 
first  questions  are  always  to  be  asked,  and  the 
wisest  doctor  is  gravelled  by  the  inquisitiveness 
of  a  child.  How  can  we  speak  of  the  action  of 
the  mind  under  any  divisions,  as  of  its  know- 
ledge, of  its  ethics,  of  its  works,  and  so  forth, 
since  it  melts  will  into  perception,  knowledge 
into  act?  Each  becomes  the  other.  Itself  alone 
is.  Its  vision  is  not  like  the  vision  of  the  eye, 
but  is  union  with  the  things  known. 

Intellect  and  intellection  signify  to  the  com- 


326  INTELLECT 

mon  ear  consideration  of  abstract  truth.  The 
considerations  of  time  and  place,  of  you  and  me, 
of  profit  and  hurt,  tyrannize  over  most  men's 
minds.  Intellect  separates  the  fact  considered, 
from^0#,  from  all  local  and  personal  reference, 
and  discerns  it  as  if  it  existed  for  its  own  sake. 
Heraclitus  looked  upon  the  affections  as  dense 
and  colored  mists.  In  the  fog  of  good  and  evil 
affections  it  is  hard  for  man  to  walk  forward  in 
a  straight  line.  Intellect  is  void  of  affection  and 
sees  an  object  as  it  stands  in  the  light  of  science, 
cool  and  disengaged.  The  intellect  goes  out  of 
the  individual,  floats  over  its  own  personality, 
and  regards  it  as  a  fact,  and  not  as  /  and  mine. 
He  who  is  immersed  in  what  concerns  person 
or  place  cannot  see  the  problem  of  existence. 
This  the  intellect  always  ponders.  Nature  shows 
all  things  formed  and  bound.  The  intellect 
pierces  the  form,  overleaps  the  wall,  detects 
intrinsic  likeness  between  remote  "tilings  and 
reduces  all  things  into  a  few  principles. 

The  making  a  fact  the  subject  of  thought 
raises  it.  All  that  mass  of  mental  and  moral 
phenomena  which  we  do  not  make  objects  of 
voluntary  thought,  come  within  the  power  of 
fortune;  they  constitute  the  circumstance  of  daily 
life;  they  are  subject  to  change,  to  fear  and 


INTELLECT  327 

hope.  Every  man  beholds  his  human  condition 
with  a  degree  of  melancholy.  As  a  ship  aground 
is  battered  by  the  waves,  sqjn^i^imprisoned_in 
mortal  life,  lies  open  to  the  mercy  of  coming 
eventsT~But  a  truth,  separated  by  the  intellect, 
is  no  longer  a  subject  of  destiny.  We  behold  it 
as  a  god  upraised  above  care  and  fear.  And  so 
any  fact  in  our  life,  or  any  record  of  our  fancies  or 
reflections,  disentangled  from  the  web  of  our  un- 
consciousness, becomes  an  object  impersonal  and 
immortal.  It  is  the  past  restored,  but  embalmed. 
A  better  art  than  that  of  Egypt  has  taken  fear 
and  corruption  out  of  it.  It  is  eviscerated  of  care. 
It  is  offered  for  science.  What  is  addressed  to 
us  for  contemplation  does  not  threaten  us  but 
makes  us  intellectual  beings.1 

The  growth  of  the  intellect  is  spontaneous  in 
every  expansion.  The  mind  that  grows  could 
not  predict  the  times,  the  means,  the  mode  of 
that  spontaneity.  God  enters  by  a  private  door 
into  every  individual.2  Long  prior  to  the  age 
of  reflection  is  the  thinking  of  the  mind.  Out  of 
.darkness  it  came  insensibly  into  the  marvellous 
Ught_p^Jx>-clay_.  In  the  period  of  infancy  it  ac- 
cepted and  disposed  of  all  impressions  from  the 
surrounding  creation  after  its  own  way.  What- 
ever any  mind  doth  or  saith  is  after  a  law,  and 


328  INTELLECT 

this  native  law  remains  over  it  after  it  has  come 
to  reflection  or  conscious  thought.  In  the  most 
worn,  pedantic,  introverted  self-tormentor's  life, 
the  greatest  part  is  incalculable  by  him,  unfore- 
seen, unimaginable,  and  must  be,  until  he  can 
take  himself  up  by  his  own  ears.  What  am  I  ? 
What  has  my  will  done  to  make  me  that  I  am  ? 
Nothing.  I  have  been  floated  into  this  thought, 
this  hour,  this  connection  of  events,  by  secret 
currents  of  might  and  mind,  and  my  ingenuity 
and  wilfulness  have  not  thwarted,  have  not  aided 
to  an  appreciable  degree.1 

Our  spontaneous  action  is  always  the  best. 
You  cannot  with  your  best  deliberation  and  heed 
come  so  close  to  any  question  as  your  spontane- 
ous glance  shall  bring  you,  whilst  you  rise  from 
your  bed,  or  walk  abroad  in  the  morning  after 
meditating  the  matter  before  sleep  on  the  pre- 
vious night.  Our  thinking  is  a  pious  reception. 
Our  truth  of  thought  is  therefore  vitiated  as 
much  by  too  violent  direction  given  by  our  will, 
as  by  too  great  negligence.  We  do  not  deter- 
mine what  we  will  think.  We  only  open  our 
senses,  clear  away  as  we  can  all  obstruction  from 
the  fact,  and  suffer  the  intellect  to  see.  We  have 
little  control  over  our  thoughts.  We  are_  the 
prisoners  of  ideas.  They  catch  us  up  for  mo- 


INTELLECT  32*, 

ments  into  their  heaven  and  so  fully  engage  us 
that  we  take  no  thought  for  the  morrow,  gaze 
like  children,  without  an  effort  to  make  them  our 
own.  By  and  by  we  fall  out  of  that  rapture,  be- 
think us  where  we  have  been,  what  we  have  seen, 
and  repeat  as  truly  as  we  can  what  we  have  be- 
held. As  far  as  we  can  recall  these  ecstasies  we 
carry  away  in  the  ineffaceable  memory  the  result, 
and  all  men  and  all  the  ages  confirm  it.  It  is 
called  truth.  But  the  moment  we  cease  to  report 
and  attempt  to  correct  and  contrive,  it  is  not 
truth. 

If  we  consider  what  persons  have  stimulated 
and  profited  us,  we  shall  perceive  the  superior- 
ity of  the  spontaneous  or  intuitive  principle  over 
the  arithmetical  or  logical.  The  first  contains 
the  second,  but  virtual  and  latent.  We  want  in 
every  man  a  long  logic  ;  we  cannot  pardon  the 
absence  of  it,  but  it  must  not  be  spoken.  Logic 
is  the  procession  or  proportionate  unfolding  of 
the  intuition  ;  but  its  virtue  is  as  silent  method  ; 
the  moment  it  would  appear  as  propositions  and 
it  is  worthless.1 


In  every  man's  mind,  some  images,  words 
and  facts  remain,  without  effort  on  his  part  to 
imprint  them,  which  others  forget,  and  after- 
wards these  illustrate  to  him  important  laws. 


330  INTELLECT 

AU_rmrj3rogress  is  an  unfolding,  like  the  vege- 
tablejnid.  You  have  first  an  instinct,  then  an 
opinion,  then  a  knowledge,  as  the  plant  has 
root,  bud  and  fruit.  Trust  the  instinct  to  the 
end,  though  you  can  render  no  reason.  It  is 
vain  to  hurry  it.  By  trusting  it  to  the  end,  it 
shall  ripen  into  truth  and  you  shall  know  why 
you  believe. 

Each  mind  has  its  own  method.  A  true 
man  never  acquires  after  college  rules.  What 
you  have  aggregated  in  a  natural  manner  sur- 
prises and  delights  when  it  is  produced.  For  we 
cannot  oversee  each  other's  secret.  And  hence 
the  differences  between  men  in  natural  endow- 
ment are  insignificant  in  comparison  with  their 
common  wealth.  Do  you  think  the  porter  and 
the  cook  have  no  anecdotes,  no  experiences,  no 
wonders  for  you  ?  Everybody  knows  as  much 
as  the  savant.  The  walls  of  rude  minds  are 
scrawled  all  over  with  facts,  with  thoughts. 
They  shall  one  day  bring  a  lantern  and  read 
the  inscriptions.  Every  man,  in  the  degree  in 
which  he  has  wit  and  culture,  finds  his  curi- 
osity inflamed  concerning  the  modes  of  living 
and  thinking  of  other  men,  and  especially  of 
those  classes  whose  minds  have  not  been  sub- 
dued by  the  drill  of  school  education. 


INTELLECT  331 

This  instinctive  action  never  ceases  in  a 
healthy  mind,  but  becomes  richer  and  more 
frequent  in  its  informations  through  all  states 
of  culture.  At  last  comes  the  era  of  reflection, 
when  we  not  only  observe,  but  take  pains  to 
observe ;  when  we  of  set  purpose  sit  down  to 
consider  an  abstract  truth ;  when  we  keep  the 
mind's  eye  open  whilst  we  converse,  whilst  we 
read,  whilst  we  act,  intent  to  learn  the  secret 
law  of  some  class  of  facts. 

What  is  the  hardest  task  in  the  world  ?  To 
think.  I  would  put  myself  in  the  attitude  to 
look  in  the  eye  an  abstract  truth,  and  I  cam 
not.  I  blench  and  withdraw  on  this  side  and 
on  that.  I  seem  to  know  what  he  meant  who 
said,  No  man  can  see  God  face  to  face  and  live. 
For  example,  a  man  explores  IKe^basis  of  civil 
government.  Let  him  intend  his  mind  without 
respite,  without  rest,  in  one  direction.  His  best 
heed  long  time  avails  him  nothing.  Yet  thoughts 
are  flitting  before  him.  We  all  but  apprehend, 
we  dimly  forebode  the  truth.  We  say  I  will 
walk  abroad,  and  the  truth  will  take  form  and 
clearness  to  me.  We  go  forth,  but  cannot  find 
it.  It  seems  as  if  we  needed  only  the  stillness 
and  composed  attitude  of  the  library  to  seize 
the  thought.  But  we  come  in,  and  are  as  far 


332  INTELLECT 

from  it  as  at  first.  Then,  in  a  moment,  and 
unannounced,  the  truth  appears.  A  certain 
wandering  light  appears,  and  is  the  distinction, 
the  principle,  we  wanted.  But  the  oracle  comes 
because  we  had  previously  laid  siege  to  the 
shrine.  It  seems  as  if  the  law  of  the  intellect 
resembled  that  law  of  nature  by  which  we  now 
inspire,  now  expire  the  breath  ;  by  which  the 
heart  now  draws  in,  then  hurls  out  the  blood, 
—  the  law  of  undulation.  So  now  you  must 
labor  witn~"your  brains,  and  now  you  must  for- 
bear your  activity  and  see  what  the  great  Soul 
showeth. 

The  immprtality__of  man  is  as  legitimately 
preached  from  the  intellections  as  from  the 
moral  volitions.  Every  intellection  is  mainly 
prospective.  Its  present  value  is  its  least.1  In- 
spect what  delights  you  in  Plutarch,  in  Shak- 
speare,  in  Cervantes.  Each  truth  that  a  writer 
acquires  is^a  lantern  which  he  turns  full  on  what 
facts  and  thoughts  lay  already  in  his  mind,  and 
behold,  all  the  mats  and  rubbish  which  had 
littered  his  garret  become  precious.  Every  triv- 
ial fact  in  his  private  biography  becomes  an 
illustration  of  this  new  principle,  revisits  the 
day,  and  delights  all  men  by  its  piquancy  and 
new  charm.  Men  say,  Where  did  he  get  this  ? 


INTELLECT  333 

and  think  there  was  something  divine  in  his 
life.  But  no ;  they  have  myriads  of  facts  just 
as  good,  would  they  only  get  a  lamp  to  ransack 
their  attics  withal.1 

We  are  all  wise.  The  difference  between  per-* 
sons  is  not  in  wisdom'"BuTTrrart.  I  knew,  in  an 
academical  club,  a  person  who  always  deferred 
to  me  ;  who,  seeing  my  whim  for  writing,  fan- 
cied that  my  experiences  had  somewhat  supe- 
rior ;  whilst  I  saw  that  his  experiences  were  as 
good  as  mine.  Give  them  to  me  and  I  would 
make  the  same  use  of  them.  He  held  the  old ; 
he  holds  the  new ;  I  had  the  habit  of  tacking 
together  the  old  and  the  new  which  he  did  not 
use  to  exercise.  This  may  hold  in  the  great 
examples.  Perhaps,  if  we  should  meet  Shak- 
speare  we  should  not  be  conscious  of  any  steep 
inferiority  ;  no,  but  of  a  great  equality,  —  only 
that  he  possessed  a  strange  skill  of  using,  of 
classifying  his  facts,  which  we  lacked.  For  not- 
withstanding our  utter  incapacity  to  produce 
anything  like  Hamlet  and  Othello,  see  the  per- 
fect reception  this  wit  and  immense  knowledge 
of  life  and  liquid  eloquence  find  in  us  all. 

If  you  gather  apples  in  the  sunshine,  or  make 
hay,  or  hoe  corn,  and  then  retire  within  doors 
and  shut  your  eyes  and  press  them  with  your 


334  INTELLECT 

hand,  you  shall  still  see  apples  hanging  in  the 
bright  light  with  boughs  and  leaves  thereto,  or 
the  tasselled  grass,  or  the  corn-flags,  and  this  for 
five  or  six  hours  afterwards.  There  lie  the  im- 
pressions on  the  retentive  organ,  though  you 
knew  it  not.  So  lies  the  whole  series  of  natural 
images  with  which  your  life  has  made  you  ac- 
quainted, in  your  memory,  though  you  know  it 
not ;  and  a  thrillpf  passion  flashes  light  on  their 
dark  chamber,  and  the  active  power  seizes  in- 
stantly the  fit  image,  as  the  word  of  its  momen- 
tary thought. 

It  is  long  ere  we  discover  how  rich  we  are. 
Our  history,  we  are  sure,  is  quite  tame  :  we  have 
nothing  to  write,  nothing  to  infer.  But  our 
wiser  years  still  run  back  to  the  despised  recol- 
lections of  childhood,  and  always  we  are  fishing 
up  some  wonderful  article  out  of  that  pond; 
until  by  and  by  we  begin  to  suspect  that  the 
biography  of  the  one  foolish  person  we  know 
is,  in  reality,  nothing  less  than  the  miniature 
paraphrase  of  the  hundred  volumes  of  the  Uni- 
versal History. 

In  the  intellect  constructive,  which  we  popu- 
larly designate  by  the  word  Genius,  we  observe 
the  same  balance  of  two  elements  as  in  intellect 
receptive.  The  constructive  intellect  produces 


INTELLECT  335 

thoughts,  sentences,  poems,  plans,  designs,  sys- 
Jems.1  It  is  the  generation  of  the  mind,  the 
marriage  of  thought  with  nature.  To  genius 
must  always  go  two  gifts,  the  thought  and  the 
publication.  The  first  is  revelation,  always  a 
miracle,  which  no  frequency  of  occurrence  or 
incessant  study  can  ever  familiarize,  but  which 
must  always  leave  the  inquirer  stupid  with  won- 
der. It  is  the  advent  of  truth  into  the  world,  a 
form  of  thought  now  for  the  first  time  bursting 
into  the  universe,  a  child  of  the  old  eternal  soul, 
a  piece  of  genuine  and  immeasurable  greatness. 
It  seems,  for  the  time,  to  inherit  all  that  has  yet 
existed  and  to  dictate  to  the  unborn.  It  affects 
every  thought  of  man  and  goes  to  fashion  every 
institution.  But  to  make  it  available  it  needs  a 
vehicle  or  art  by  which  it  is  conveyed  to  men. 
To  be  communicable  it  must  become  picture 
or  sensible  object.  We  must  learn  the  language 
of  fa£ts.  The  most  wonderful  inspirations  die 
with  their  subject  if  he  has  no  hand  to  paint 
them  to  the  senses.  The  ray_of_light  passes  in- 
visible through  space  and  only  when  it  falls  on 
an  object  is  it  seen.  When  the  spiritual  energy 
is  directed  on  something  outward,  then  it  is  a 
thought.  The  relation  between  it  and  you  first 
makes  you,  the  value  of  you,  apparent  to  me, 


336  INTELLECT 

The  rich  inventive  genius  of  the  painter  must 
be  smothered  and  lost  for  want  of  the  power 
of  drawing,  and  in  our  happy  hours  we  should 
be  inexhaustible  poets  if  once  we  could  break 
through  the  silence  into  adequate  rhyme.  As 
all  men  have  some  access  to  primary  truth,  so 
all  have  some  art  or  power  of  communication  in 
their  head,  but  only  in  the  artist  does  it  descend 
into  the  hand.  There  is  an  inequality,  whose 
laws  we  do  not  yet  know,  between  two  men  and 
between  two  moments  of  the  same  man,  in  re- 
spect to  this  faculty.  In  common  hours  we  have 
the  same  facts  as  in  the  uncommon  or  inspired, 
but  they  do  not  sit  for  their  portrait ;  they  are 
not  detached,  but  lie  in  a  web.  The  thought 
of  genius  is  spontaneous ;  but  the  power  of  pic- 
ture or  expression,  in  the  most  enriched  and 
flowing  nature,  implies  a  mixture  of  will,  a  cer- 
tain control  over  the  spontaneous  states,  with- 
out which  no  production  is  possible.1  It  is_  a 
conversion  of  all  nature  into  theCrhetoric  of 
though  thunder  the  eye  of  judgment,  with  a 
fftrenuous  exercise  of  choice.  And  yet  the  im- 
aginative vocabulary  seems  to  be  spontaneous 
also.  It  does  not  flow  from  experience  only  or 
mainly,  but  from  a. richer  source.  Not  by  any 
conscious  imitation  of  particular  forms  are  the 


INTELLECT  337 

grand  strokes  of  the  painter  executed,  but  by 
repairing  to  the  fountain-head  of  all  forms  in 
his  mind.  Who  is  the  first  drawing-master  ? 
Without  instruction  we  know  very  well  the  ideal 
of  the  human  form.  A  child  knows  if  an  arm 
or  a  leg  be  distorted  in  a  picture ;  if  the  attitude 
be  natural  or  grand  or  mean ;  though  he  has 
never  received  any  instruction  in  drawing  or 
heard  any  conversation  on  the  subject,  nor  can 
himself  draw  with  correctness  a  single  feature. 
A  good  form  strikes  all  eyes  pleasantly,  long 
before  they  have  any  science  on  the  subject,  and 
a  beautiful  face  sets  twenty  hearts  in  palpitation, 
prior  to  all  consideration  of  the  mechanical  pro- 
portions of  the  features  and  head.  We  may  owe 
to  dreams  some  light  on  the  fountain  of  this 
skill ;  for  as  soon  as  we  let  our  will  go  and  let 
the  unconscious  states  ensue,  see  what  cunning 
draughtsmen  we  are !  We  entertain  ourselves 
with  wonderful  forms  of  men,  of  women,  of  ani- 
mals, of  gardens,  of  woods  and  of  monsters,  and 
the  mystic  pencil  wherewith  we  then  draw  has 
no  awkwardness  or  inexperience,  no  meagreness 
or  poverty ;  it  can  design  well  and  group  well ; 
its  composition  is  full  of  art,  its  colors  are  well 
laid  on  and  the  whole  canvas  which  it  paints  is 
lifelike  and  apt  to  touch  us  with  terror,  with 


33»  INTELLECT 

tenderness,  with  desire  and  with  grief.  Neither 
are  the  artist's  copies  from  experience  ever  mere 
copies,  but  always  touched  and  softened  by  tints 
from  this  ideal  domain. 

The  conditions  essential  to  a  constructive 
mino^dcT  not  appear  to  be  so  often  combined 
bu£  that  a  good  sentence  or  versej^mamsjfresh 
and  memorable  for  a  long  time.  Yet  when  we 
write  with  ease  and  come  out  into  the  free  air 
of  thought,  we  seem  to  be  assured  that  nothing 
is  easier  than  to  continue  this  communication  at 
pleasure.  Up,  down,  around,  the  kingdom  of 
thought  has  np4|iclosure^s,  but  the  Muse  makes 
us  free  of  her  city.  Well,  the  world  has  a  million 
writers.  One  would  think  then  that  good  thought 
would  be  as  familiar  as  air  and  water,  and  the 
gifts  of  each  new  hour  would  exclude  the  last. 
Yet  we  can  count  all  our  good  books ;  nay,  I  re* 
member  any  beautiful  verse  for  twenty  years.  It 
is  true  that  the  discerning  intellect  of  the  world 
is  always  much  in  advance  of  the  creative,  so  that 
ftthere  are  many  competent  judges  of  the  best 
I  book,  and  few  writers  of  the  best  books.  But 
some  of  the  conditions  of  intellectual  construc- 
tion are  of  rare  occurrence.  The  intellect  is  a 
whole  and  demands  integrity  in  every  work. 
This  is  resisted  equally  by  a  man's  devotion  to 


INTELLECT  339 

a  single  thought  and  by  his  ambition  to  combine 
too  many. 

*  Truth  is  our  element  of  life,  yet  if  a  man 
fasten  his  attention  on  a  single  aspect  of  truth 
and_appiy"Hnh,selt'  to  that  alone  tor  a  long  jime, 
the  truth  becomes  distorted  and  not  itself  but 
falsehood ;  herein  resembling  the  air,  which  is 
our  natural  element  and  the  breath  of  our  nos- 
trils, but  if  a  stream  of  the  same  be  directed  on 
the  body  for  a  time,  it  causes  cold,  fever,  and 
even  death.  How  wearisome  the  grammarian, 
the  phrenologist,  the  political  or  religious  fanatic, 
or  indeed  any  possessed  mortal  whose  balance  is 
lost  by  the  exaggeration  of  a  single  topic.  It 
is  incipient  insanity.  Every^thpught  is  a  prison 
aitsa  I  cannot  see  what  you  see,  because  I  am 
caught  up  by  a  strong  wind  and  blown  so  far  in 
one  direction  that  I  am  out  of  the  hoop  of  your 
horizon.1 

Is  it  any  better  if  the  student,  to  avoid  this 
offence  and  to  liberalize  himself,  aims  to  make 
a  mechanical  whole  of  history,  or  science,  or  phi- 
losophy, by  a  numerical  addition  of  all  the  facts 
that  fall  within  his  vision  ?  The  world  refuses 
to  be  analyzed  by  addition  and  subtraction. 
When  we  are  young  we  spend  much  time  and 
pains  in  filling  our  note-books  with  all  defini- 


340  INTELLECT 

tions  of  Religion,  Love,  Poetry,  Politics,  Art, 
in  the  hope  that  in  the  course  of  a  few  years 
we  shall  have  condensed  into  our  encyclopaedia 
tHe  net  value  of  all  the  theories  at  which  the 
world  has  yet  arrived.  But  year  after  year  our 
tables  get  no  completeness,  and  at  last  we  dis- 
cover that  our  curve  is  a  parabola,  whose  arcs 
will  never  meet. 

Neither  by  detachment,  neither  by  aggrega- 
tion is  the  integrity  of  the  intellect  transmitted 
to  its  works,  but  by  a  vigilance  which  brings  the 
intellect  in  its  greatness  and  best  state  to  operate 
every  moment.  It  must  have  the  same  whole- 
ness which  nature  has.  Although  no  diligence 
can  rebuild  the  universe  in  a  model  by  the  best 
accumulation  or  disposition  of  details,  yet  does 
the  world  reappear  in  miniature  in  every  event, 
so  that  all  the  laws  of  nature  may  be  read  in  the 
smallest  fact.1  The  intellect  must  have  the  like 
perfection  in  its  apprehension  and  in  its  works. 
For  this  reason,  an  index  or  mercury  of  intellec- 
tual proficiency  is  the  perception  of  identity.  We 
talk  with  accomplished  persons  who  appear  to 
be  strangers  in  nature.  The  cloud,  the  tree,  the 
turf,  the  bird,  are  not  theirs,  have  nothing  of 
them  ;  the  world  is  only  their  lodging  and  table. 
But  the  poet,  whose  verses  are  to  be  spheral  and 


INTELLECT  341 

complete,  is  one  whom  Nature  cannot  deceive, 
whatsoever  face  of  strangeness  she  may  put  on. 
He  feels  a  strict  consanguinity,  and  detects  more 
likeness  than  variety  in  all  her  changes.  We  are 
stung  by  the  desire  for  new  thought ;  but  when 
we  receive  a  new  thought  it  is  only  the  old 
thought  with  a  new  face,  and  though  we  make 
it  our  own  we  instantly  crave  another ;  we  are 
not  really  enriched.  For  the  truth  was  in  us  be- 
fore it  was  reflected  to  us  from  natural  objects ; 
and  the  profound  genius  will  cast  the  likeness  of 
all  creatures  into  every  product  of  his  wit. 

But  if  the  constructive  powers  are  rare  and  it 
is  given  to  few  men  to  be  poets,  yet  every  man 
is  a  receiver  of  this  descending  holy  ghost,  and 
may  well  study  the  laws  of  its  influx.  Exactly 
parallel  is  the  whole  rule  of  intellectual  duty  to 
the  rule  of  moral  duty.  A  self-denial  no  less 
austere  than  the  saint's  is  demanded  of  the 
scholar.  He  must  worship  truth,  and  forego  all 
things  for  that,  and  choose  defeat  and  pain,  so 
that  his  treasure  in  thought  is  thereby  aug- 
mented.1 

God  offers  to  every  mind  its  choice  between 
truth  and  repose.  Take  which  you  please,  — 
you  can  never  have  both.  Between  these,  as  a 
pendulum,  man  oscillates.  He  in  whom  the  love 


342  INTELLECT 

of  repose  predominates  will  accept  the  first  creed, 
the  first  philosophy,  the  first  political  party  he 
meets, — most  likely  his  father's.  He  gets  rest, 
commodity  and  reputation  ;  but  he  shuts  the 
door  of  truth.  He  in  whom  the  love  of  truth 
predominates  will  keep  himself  aloof  from  all 
moorings,  and  ajloat.  He  will  abstain  from  dog- 
matism, and  recognize  all  the  orjpjositejiegations 
between  which,  as  walls, his  bejjigjs  swung.  He 
submits  to  the  inconvenience  of  suspense  and 
imperfect  opinion,  but  he  is  a  candidate  for  truth, 
as  the  other  is  not,  and  respects  the  highest  law 
of  his  being. 

The  circle  of  the  green  earth  he  must  mea- 
sure with  his  shoes  to  find  the  man  who  can 
yield  him  truth.  He  shall  then  know  that  there 
is  somewhat  more  blessed  and  great  in  hearing 
than  in  speaking.  Happy  is  the  hearing  man  ; 
unhappy  the  speaking  man.  As  long  as  I  hear 
truth  I  am  bathed  by  a  beautiful  element  and 
am  not  conscious  of  any  limits  to  my  nature. 
The  suggestions  are  thousand-fold  that  I  hear 
and  see.  The  waters  of  the  great  deep  have 
"ingress  and  egress  to  the  soul.  But  if  I  speak, 
I  define,  I  confine  and  am  less.  When  Socrates 
speaks,  Lysis  and  Menexenus  are  afflicted  by 
no  shame  that  they  do  not  speak.  They  also 


INTELLECT  343 

are  good.  He  likewise  defers  to  them,  loves 
them,  whilst  he  speaks.  Because  a  true  and 
natural  man  contains  and  is  the  same  truth 
which  an  eloquent  man  articulates ;  but  in  the 
eloquent  man,  because  he  can  articulate  it,  it 
seems  something  the  less  to  reside,  and  he  turns 
to  these  silent  beautiful  with  the  more  inclina- 
tion and  respect.  The  ancient  sentence  said, 
Let  us  be  silentT  for  so  aretKe^  godsT^  Silence 
is  a  solvent  that  destroys  personality,  and  gives 
us  leave  to  be  great  and  universal.  Every  man's 
progress  is  through  a  succession  of  teachers, 
each  of  whom  seems  at  the  time  to  have  a  su- 
perlative influence,  but  it  at  last  gives  place  to 
a  new.  Frankly  let  him  accept  it  all.  Jesus_ 
says.  Leave  father,  mother,  house  and  lands, 
and  Tollow  me.  Who  leaves  aJJ^receives^  more. 
This  is  as  true  intellectually  as  morally.  Each 
new  mind  we  approach  seems  to  require  an  ab- 
dication of  all  our  past  and  present  possessions. 
A  new  doctrine  seems  at  first  a  subversion  of 
all  our  opinions,  tastes,  and  manner  of  living. 
Such  has  Swedenborg,  such  has  Kant,  such  has 
Coleridge,  such  has  Hegel  or  his  interpreter 
Cousin  seemed  to  many  young  men  in  this 
country.  Take  thankfully  and  heartily  all  they 
can  give.  Exhaust  them,  wrestle  with  them,  let 


344  INTELLECT 

them  not  go  until  their  blessing  be  won,  and 
after  a  short  season  the  dismay  will  be  over- 
past, the  excess  of  influence  withdrawn,  and  they 
will  be  no  longer  an  alarming  meteor,  but  one 
more  bright  star  shining  serenely  in  your  hea- 
ven and  blending  its  light  with  all  your  day. 

But  whilst  he  gives  himself  up  unreservedly 
to  that  which  draws  him,  because  that  is  his 
own,  he  is  to  refuse  himself  to  that  which  draws 
him  not,  whatsoever  fame  and  authority  may 
attend  it,  because  it  is  not  his  own.1  Entire 
self-reliance  belongs  to  the  intellect.  One  soul 
is  a  counterpoise  of  all  souls,  as  a  capillary  col- 
umn~oTwater  is  a  balance  for  the  sea.  It  must 
treat  things  and  books  and  sovereign  genius  as 
itself  also  a  sovereign.  If  JEschylus  be  that 
man  he  is  taken  for,  he  has  not  yet  done  his 
office  when  he  has  educated  the  learned  of 
Europe  for  a  thousand  years.  He  is  now  to 
approve  himself  a  master  of  delight  to  me  also. 
If  he  cannot  do  that,  all  his  fame  shall  avail 
him  nothing  with  me.  I  were  a  fool  not  to 
sacrifice  a  thousand  ^Eschyluses  to  my  intellec- 
tual integrity.  Especially  take  the  same  ground 
in  regard  to  abstract  truth,  the  science  of  the 
mind.  The  Bacon,  the  Spinoza,  the  Hume. 
Schelling,  Kant,  or  whosoever  propounds  to 


INTELLECT  345 

you  a  philosophy  of  the  mind,  is  only  a  more 
or  less  awkward  translator  of  things  in  your 
consciousness  which  you  have  also  your  way  of 
seeing,  perhaps  of  denominating.  Say  then,  in- 
stead of  too  timidly  poring  into  his  obscure 
sense,  that  he  has  not  succeeded  in  rendering 
back  to  you  your  consciousness.  He  has  not 
succeeded  ;  now  let  another  try.  If  Plato  can- 
not, perhaps  Spinoza  will.  If  Spinoza  cannot, 
then  perhaps  Kant.  Anyhow,  when  at  last  it 
is  done,  you  will  find  it  is  no  recondite,  but  a 
simple,  natural,  common  state  which  the  writer 
restores  to  you. 

But  let  us  end  these  didactics.  I  will  not, 
though  the  subject  might  provoke  it,  speak  to 
the  open  question  between  Truth  and  Love. 
I  shall  not  presume  to  interfere  in  the  old  pol- 
itics oftheskies  ;  —  "  The  cherubim  know 
most ;  the  seraphim  love  most."  The  gods 
shall  settle  their  own  quarrels.  But  I  cannot 
recite,  even  thus  rudely,  laws  of  the  intellect, 
without  remembering  that  lofty  and  sequestered 
class  who  have  been  its  prophets  and  oracles, 
the  high-priesthood  of  the  pure  reason,  the 
TrismtgutiJ  the  expounders  of  the  principles 
of  thought  from  age  to  age.  When  at  long  in- 
tervals we  turn  over  their  abstruse  pages,  won- 


346  INTELLECT 

derful  seems  the  calm  and  grand  air  of  these 
few,  these  great  spiritual  lords  who  have  walked 
in  the  world,  —  these  of  the  old  religion, — 
dwelling  in  a  worship  which  makes  the  sancti- 
ties of  Christianity  look  parvenues  and  popular ; 
>  for  "  persuasion  is  in  soul,  but  necessity  is  in 
^intellect."1  This  band  of  grandees,  Hermes, 
Heraclitus,  Empedocles,  Plato,  Plotinus,  Olym- 
piodorus,  Proclus,  Synesius  and  the  rest,  have 
somewhat  so  vast  in  their  logic,  so  primary  in 
their  thinking,  that  it  seems  antecedent  to  all 
the  ordinary  distinctions  of  rhetoric  and  litera- 
ture, and  to  be  at  once  poetry  and  music  and 
dancing  and  astronomy  and  mathematics.  I  am 
present  at  the  sowing  of  the  seed  of  the  world. 
With  a  geometry  of  sunbeams  the  soul  lays  the 
foundations  of  nature.  The  truth  and  grandeur 
of  their  thought  is  proved  by  its  scope  and  ap- 
plicability, for  it  commands  the  entire  schedule 
and  inventory  of  things  for  its  illustration.  But 
what  marks  its  elevation  and  has  even  a  comic 
look  to  us,  is  the  innocent  serenity  with  which 
these  babe-like  Jupiters  sit  in  their  clouds,  and 
from  age  to  age  prattle  to  each  other  and  to  no 
contemporary.  Well  assured  that  their  speech 
is  intelligible  and  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world,  they  add  thesis  to  thesis,  without  a  mo- 


INTELLECT  347 

heed  of  the  universal  astonishment  of 
the  human  race  below,  who  do  not  comprehend 
their  plainest  argument ;  nor  do  they  ever  re- 
lent so  much  as  to  insert  a  popular  or  explain- 
ing sentence,  nor  testify  the  least  displeasure  or 
petulance  at  the  dulness  of  their  amazed  audi- 
tory. The  angels  are  so  enamored  of  the  lan- 
guage that  is  spoken  in  heaven  that  they  will 
not  distort  their  lips  with  the  hissing  and  un- 
musical dialects  of  men,  but  speak  "their  own, 
whether  there  be  any  who  understand  it  or  not,. 


XII 
ART 

GIVE  to  barrows,  trays  and  pang 
Grace  and  glimmer  of  romance, 
Bring  the  moonlight  into  noon 
Hid  in  gleaming  piles  of  stone; 
On  the  city's  paved  street 
Plant  gardens  lined  with  lilac  sweet, 
Let  spouting  fountains  cool  the  air, 
Singing  in  the  sun-baked  square. 
Let  statue,  picture,  park  and  hall, 
Ballad,  flag  and  festival, 
The  past  restore,  the  day  adorn 
And  make  each  morrow  a  new  morn. 
So  shall  the  drudge  in  dusty  frock 
Spy  behind  the  city  clock 
Retinues  of  airy  kings, 
Skirts  of  angels,  starry  wings, 
His  fathers  shining  in  bright  fables, 
His  children  fed  at  heavenly  tables. 
'Tis  the  privilege  of  Art 
Thus  to  play  its  cheerful  part, 
Man  in  Earth  to  acclimate 
And  bend  the  exile  to  his  fate, 
And,  moulded  of  one  element 
With  the  days  and  firmament, 
Teach  him  on  these  as  stairs  to  climb 
And  live  on  even  terms  with  Time; 
Whilst  upper  life  the  slender  rill 
Of  human  sense  doth  overfill. 


ART 

BECAUSE  the  soul  is  progressive,  it^ never 
quite  repeats  'itself,  but  ~m~  every  act  at- 
tempts fHe~ipro^u^tiorroT  a  new  and  fairer  whole. 
This  appears  in  works  both  of  the  useful  and 
fine  arts,  if  we  employ  the  popular  distinction 
of  works  according  to  their  aim  either  at  use  or 
beauty.  Thus  jn^our  fine  arts,  not  imitation  but 
creation  is  the  aim.  In  landscapes  the  painter 
should  give  the  suggestion  of  a  fairer  creation 
than  we  know.  The  details,  the  prose  of  nature 
he  should  omit  and  give  us  only  the  spirit  and 
splendor.  He  should  know  that  the  landscape 
has  beauty  for  his  eye  because  it  expresses  a 
thought  which  is  to  him  good ;  and  this  because 
the  same  power  which  sees  through  his  eyes 
is  seen  in  that  spectacle  ;  and  he  will  come  to 
value  the  expression  of  nature  and  not  nature 
itself,  and  so  exalt  in  his  copy  the  features  that 
please  him.  He  will  give  the  gloom  of  gloom 
and  the  sunshine  of  sunshine.  In  a  portrait  he 
must  inscribe  the  character  and  not  the  features, 
and  must  esteem  the  man  who  sits  to  him  as 
himself  only  an  imperfect  picture  or  likeness 
of  the  aspiring  original  within.1 


352  ART 

What  is  that  abridgment  and  selection  we 
observe  in  all  spiritual  activity,  but  itself  the 
creative  impulse  ?  for  it  is  the  inlet  of  that 
higher  illumination  which  teaches  to  convey 
a  larger  sense  by  simpler  symbols.  What  is  a 

man    hii^    nature's    finer  success   in    self-explicar 

tiorjjL_What  is  a  man  but  a  finer  and  compacter 
landscape  than  the  horizon  figures, —  nature's 
eclecticism  ?  and  what  is  his  speech,  his  love  of 
painting,  love  of  nature,  but  a  still  finer  success, 
—  all  the  weary  miles  and  tons  of  space  and  bulk 
left  out,  and  the  spirit  or  moral  of  it  contracted 
into  a  musical  word,  or  the  most  cunning  stroke 
of  the  pencil  ? 

But  the  artist  must  employ  the  symbols  in 
use  in  his  day  and  nation  to  convey  his  enlarged 
sense  to  his  fellow-men.  Thus  the  new__in_art 
is  always  formed  out  of  the  old.  The  Genius 
of  the  Hour  sets  his  ineffaceable  seal  on  the 
work  and  gives  it  an  inexpressible  charm  for 
the  imagination.  As  far  as  the  spiritual  char- 
acter of  the  period  overpowers  the  artist  and 
finds  expression  in  his  work,  so  far  it  will  retain 
a  certain  grandeur,  and  will  represent  to  future 
beholders  the  Unknown,  the  Inevitable,  the 
Divine.1  No  man  can  quite  exclude  this  ele- 
ment of  Necessity  from  his  labor.  No  man 


ART  353 

can  quite  emancipate  himself  from  his  age  and 
country,  or  produce  a  model  in  which  the  edu- 
cation, the  religion,  the  politics,  usages  and  arts 
of  his  times  shall  have  no  share.  Though  he 
were  never  so  original,  never  so  wilful  and  fan- 
tastic, he  cannot  wipe  out  of  his  work  every 
trace  of  the  thoughts  amidst  which  it  grew. 
The  very  avoidance  betrays  the  usage  he  avoids. 
Above  his  will  and  out  of  his  sight  he  is  neces- 
sitated by  the  air  he  breathes  and  the  idea  on 
which  he  and  his  contemporaries  live  and  toil, 
to  share  the  manner  of  his  times,  without  know- 
ing what  that  manner  is.  Now  that  which  is 
inevitable  in  the  work  has  a  higher  charm  than 
individual  talent  can  ever  give,  inasmuch  as  the 
artist's  pen  or  chisel  seems  to  have  been  held 
and  guided  by  a  gigantic  hand  to  inscribe  a  line 
in  the  history  of  the  human  race.  This  circum- 
stance gives  a  value  to  the  Egyptian  hieroglyph- 
ics, to  the  Indian,  Chinese  and  Mexican  idols, 
however  gross  and  shapeless.  They  denote  the 
height  of  the  human  soul  in  that  hour,  and  were 
not  fantastic,  but  sprung  from  a  necessity  as 
deep  as  the  world.1  Shall  I  now  add^  that  the 
whole  extant  prodiic*"  "f  fhe  plas^r  arfs  h?« 
herein  its  highest  value,  as  history ;  as  a  stroke 
drawn  in  the  portrait  of  that  fate,  perfect  and 


354  ART 

beautiful,  according   to  whose  ordinations   aH 
beings  advance  to  their  beatitude  ? 

Thus,  historically  viewed,  it  has  been  tht 
office  of  art  to  educate  the  perception  of  beauty. 
We  are  immersed  in  beauty,  but  our  eyes  have 
no  clear  vision.  It  needs,  by  the  exhibition 
of  single  traits,  to  assist  and  lead  the  dormant 
taste.  We  carve  and  paint,  or  we  behold  what  is 
carved  and  painted,  as  students  of  the  mystery 
of  Form.  The  virtue  of  art  lies  in  detachment, 
in  sequestering  one  object  from  the  embarrass- 
ing variety.  Until  one  thing  comes  out  from 
the  connection  of  things,  there  can  be  enjoy- 
ment, contemplation,  but  no  thought.  Our 
happiness  and  unhappiness  are  unproductive. 
The  infant  lies  in  a  pleasing  trance,  but  his 
individual  character  and  his  practical  power  de- 
pend on  his  daily  progress  in  the  separation  of 
things,  and  dealing  with  one  at  a  time.  Love 
and  all  the  passions  concentrate  all  existence 
around  a  single  form.  It  is  the  habit  of  certain 
minds  to  give  an  all-excluding  fulness  to  the 
object,  the  thought,  the  word  they  alight  upon, 
and  to  make  that  for  the  time  the  deputy  of 
the  world.  These  are  the  artists,  the  orators, 
the  leaders  of  society.  The  power  to 
and  to  magmr7~5y"c[etaching^is  the  essence  ol 


ART  355 

rhetoric  in  the  hands  of  the  orator 

_  — 

lis^  rhetoric,  or  power  to  fix  the  momentary 
e&inency"  of  an__object,  —  so  remarkable  in 
Burke,  in  Byron,  in  Carlyle,  —  the  painter  and 
sculptor  exhibit  in  color  and  in  stone.  The 
power  depends  on  the  depth  of  the  artist's  in- 
sight of  that  object  he  contemplates.  For  every 
object  has  its  roots  in  central  nature,  and  may 
of  course  be  so  exhibited  to  us  as  to  represent 
the  world.1  Therefore  each  work  of  genius  is 
the  tyrant  of  the  hour  and  concentrates  atten- 
tion on  itself.  For  the  time,  it  is  the  only  thing 
worth  naming  to  do  that,  —  be  it  a  sonnet,  an 
opera,  a  landscape,  a  statue,  an  oration,  the  plan 
of  a  temple,  of  a  campaign,  or  of  a  voyage  of 
discovery.  Presently  we  pass  to  some  other 
object,  which  rounds  itself  into  a  whole  as  did 
the  first ;  for  example  a  well-laid  garden  ;  and 
nothing  seems  worth  doing  but  the  laying  out 
of  gardens.  I  should  think  fire  the  best  thing 
in  the  world,  if  I  were  not  acquainted  with  air, 
and  water,  and  earth.  For  it  is  the  right  and 
property  of  all  natural  objects,  of  all  genuine 
talents,  of  all  native  properties  whatsoever,  to 
be  for  their  moment  the  top  of  the  world.  A 
squirrel  leaping  from  bough  to  bough  and  mak- 
ing the  wood  but  one  wide  tree  for  his  pleasure, 


356  ART 

fills  the  eye  not  less  than  a  lion,  —  is  beautiful, 
self-sufficing,  and  stands  then  and  there  for  na- 
ture.1 A  good  ballad  draws  my  ear  and  heart 
whilst  I  listen,  as  much  as  an  epic  has  done 
before.  A  dog,  drawn  by  a  master,  or  a  litter 
of  pigs,  satisfies  and  is  a  reality  not  less  than 
the  frescoes  of  Angelo.  From  this  succession 
of  excellent  objects  we  learn  at  last  the  immen- 
sity of  the  world,  the  opulence  of  human  nature, 
which  can  run  out  to  infinitude  in  any  direction. 
But  I  also  learn  that  what  astonished  and  fasci- 
nated me  in  the  first  work,  astonished  me  in  the 
second  work  also ;  that  excellence  of  all  things 
is  one. 

The  office  of  painting  and  sculpture  seems  to 
be  merely  initial.  The  best  pictures  can  easily 
tell  us  their  last  secret.  The  best  pictures  are 
rude  draughts  of  a  few  of  the  miraculous  dots 
and  lines  and  dyes  which  make  up  the  ever- 
changing  "  landscape  with  figures  "  amidst  which 
we  dwell.  Painting  seems  to  be  to  the  eye  what 
dancing  is  to  the  limbs.  When  that  has  edu- 
cated the  frame  to  self-possession,  to  nimble- 
ness,  to  grace,  the  steps  of  the  dancing-master 
are  better  forgotten  ;  so  painting  teaches  me  the 
splendor  of  color  and  the  expression  of  form, 
and  as  I  see  many  pictures  and  higher  genius 


ART  357 

in  the  art,  I  see  the  boundless  opulence  of  the 
pencil,  the  indifferency  in  which  the  artist  stands 
free  to  choose  out  of  the  possible  forms.  If  he 
can  draw  every  thing,  why  draw  any  thing  ?  and 
then  is  my  eye  opened  to  the  eternal  picture 
which  nature  paints  in  the  street,  with  mov- 
ing men  and  children,  beggars  and  fine  ladies, 
draped  in  red  and  green  and  blue  and  gray  ; 
long-haired,  grizzled,  white-faced,  black-faced, 
wrinkled,  giant,  dwarf,  expanded,  elfish,  — 
capped  and  based  by  heaven,  earth  and  sea.1 

A  gallery  of  sculpture  teaches  more  austerely 
the  same  lesson.  As  picture  teaches  the  color- 
ing, so  sculpture  the  anatomy  of  form.  When 
I  have  seen  fine  statues  and  afterwards  enter 
a  public  assembly,  I  understand  well  what  he 
meant  who  said,  "  When  I  have  been  reading 
Homer,  all  men  look  like  giants."  I  too  see 
that  painting  and  sculpture  are  gymnastics  of 
the  eye,  its  training  to  the  niceties  and  curiosi- 
ties of  its  function.  There  is  no  statue  like  this 
living  man,  with  his  infinite  advantage  over  all 
jdeal  sculpture,  of  perpetual  variety.  What  a 
gallery  of  art  have  I  here  !  No  mannerist  made 
these  varied  groups  and  diverse  original  single 
figures.  Here  is  the  artist  himself  improvising, 
grim  and  glad,  at  his  block.  Now  one  thought 


358  ART 

strikes  him,  now  another,  and  with  each  mo- 
ment he  alters  the  whole  air,  attitude  and  ex- 
pression of  his  clay.  Away  with  your  nonsense 
of  oil  and  easels,  of  marble  and  chisels  ;  except 
to  open  your  eyes  to  the  masteries  of  eternal 
art,  they  are  hypocritical  rubbish. 

The  reference  of  all  production  at  last  to  an 
aboriginal  Power  explains  the  traits  common  to 
all  works  of  the  highest  art,  —  that  they  are  uni- 
versally intelligible ;  that  they  restore  to  us  the 
simplest  states  of  mind,  and  are  religious.  Since 

\what  skill  is  therein  shown  is  the  reappearance 
of  the  original  soul,  a  jet  of  pure  light,  it  should 
produce  a  similar  impression  to  that  made  by 
natural  objects.  In  happy  hours,  nature  ap- 
pears to  us  one  with  art ;  art  perfected,  —  the 
work  of  genius.  And  the  individual  in  whom 
simple  tastes  and  susceptibility  to  all  the  great 
human  influences  overpower  the  accidents  of  a 
local  and  special  culture,  is  the  best  critic  of  art. 
Though  we  travel  the  world  over  to  find  the 
beautiful,  we  must  carry  it  with  us,  or  we  find 
it  not.1  The  best  of  beauty  is  a  finer  charm 
than  skill  in  surfaces,  in  outlines,  or  rules  of  art 
can  ever  teach,  namely  a  radiation  from  the  work 
of  art,  of  human  character,  —  a  wonderful  ex- 
pression through  stone,  or  canvas,  or  musical 


ART  359 

•ound,  of  the  deepest  and  simplest  attributes  of 
our  nature,  and  therefore  most  intelligible  at  last 
to  those  souls  which  have  these  attributes.  In 
the  sculptures  of  the  Greeks,  in  the  masonry  of 
the  Romans,  and  in  the  pictures  of  the  Tuscan 
and  Venetian  masters,  the  highest  charm  is  the 
universal  language  they  speak.  A  confession  of 
moral  nature,  of  purity,  love,  and  hope,  breathes 
from  them  all.  That  which  we  carry  to  them, 
the  same  we  bring  back  more  fairly  illustrated 
in  the  memory.  The  traveller  who  visits  the 
Vatican  and  passes  from  chamber  to  chamber 
through  galleries  of  statues,  vases,  sarcophagi 
and  candelabra,  through  all  forms  of  beauty  cut 
in  the  richest  materials,  is  in  danger  of  forget- 
ting the  simplicity  of  the  principles  out  of  which 
they  all  sprung,  and  that  they  had  their  origin 
from  thoughts  and  laws  in  his  own  breast.  He 
studies  the  technical  rules  on  these  wonderful 
remains,  but  forgets  that  these  works  were  not 
always  thus  constellated ; '  that  they  are  the  con- 
tributions of  many  ages  and  many  countries ; 
that  each  came  out  of  the  solitary  workshop  of 
one  artist,  who  toiled  perhaps  in  ignorance  of  the 
existence  of  other  sculpture,  created  his  work 
without  other  model  save  life,  household  life, 
and  the  sweet  and  smart  of  personal  relations, 


360  ART 

of  beating  hearts,  and  meeting  eyes  ;  of  poverty 
and  necessity  and  hope  and  fear.  These  were 
his  inspirations,  and  these  are  the  effects  he  car- 
ries home  to  your  heart  and  mind.  In  propor- 
tion to  his  force,  the  artist  will  find  in  his  work 
an  outlet  for  his  proper  character.  He  must  not 
be  in  any  manner  pinched  or  hindered  by  his 
material,  but  through  his  necessity  of  imparting 
himself  the  adamant  will  be  wax  in  his  hands, 
and  will  allow  an  adequate  communication  of 
himself,  in  his  full  stature  and  proportion.  He 
need  not  cumber  himself  with  a  conventional 
nature  and  culture,  nor  ask  what  is  the  mode  in 
Rome  or  in  Paris,  but  that  house  and  weather 
and  manner  of  living  which  poverty  and  the  fate 
of  birth  have  made  at  once  so  odious  and  so 
dear,  in  the  gray  unpainted  wood  cabin,  on  the 
corner  of  a  New  Hampshire  farm,  or  in  the  log- 
hut  of  the  backwoods,  or  in  the  narrow  lodging 
where  he  has  endured  the  constraints  and  seem- 
ing of  a  city  poverty,  will  serve  as  well  as  any 
other  condition  as  the  symbol  of  a  thought  which 
pours  itself  indifferently  through  all. 

I  remember  when  in  my  younger  days  I  had 
heard  of  the  wonders  of  Italian  painting,  I  fan- 
cied the  great  pictures  would  be  great  strangers ; 
some  surprising  combination  of  color  and  form ; 


ART  361 

a  foreign  wonder,  barbaric  pearl  and  gold,  like 
the  spontoons  and  standards  of  the  militia,  which 
play  such  pranks  in  the  eyes  and  imaginations 
of  school-boys.  I  was  to  see  and  acquire  I  knew 
not  what.  When  I  came  at  last  to  Rome  and  ^ 

saw  with  eyes  the  pictures,  I  found  that  genius    ^ 
left  to  novices  the  gay  and  fantastic  and  osten-    /J  & 
tatious,  and  itself  pierced  directly  to  the  simple    ^ 
and  true ;  that  it  was  familiar  and  sincere  ;  that 
ifjwas  the  old,  eternal  fact  I  had  met  already  in 
so  many  forms,  —  unto  which  I  lived ;  that  it 
was  the  plain  you  and  me  I  knew  so  well,  —  had 
left  at  home  in  so  many  conversations.    I  had 
had  the  same  experience  already  in  a  church  at 
Naples.   There  I  saw  that  nothing  was  changed 
with  me  but  the  place,  and  said  to  myself — 
'  Thou  foolish  child,  hast  thou  come  out  hither,  ^Y 
over  four  thousand  miles  of  salt  water,  to  find  A 
that  which  was  perfect  to  thee  there  at  home  ? ' ' 
That  fact  I  saw  again  in  the  Academmia  at  Na- 
ples, in  the  chambers  of  sculpture,  and  yet  again 
when  I  came  to  Rome  and  to  the  paintings  of 
Raphael,  Angelo,  Sacchi,  Titian,  and  Leonardo 
da  Vinci.    "  What,  old  mole !  workest  thou  in  ««^f 
the  earth  so  fast?"3    It  had  travelled  by  my 
side ;  that  which  I  fancied  I  had  left  in  Boston 
was  here  in  the  Vatican,  and  again  at  Milan  and 


?6i  ART 

at  Paris,  and  made  all  travelling  ridiculous  as  a 
treadmill.1  I  now  require  this  of  all  pictures, 
that  they  domesticate  me,  not  that  they  dazzle 
me.  Pictures  must  not  be  too  picturesque.  No- 
thing astonishes  men  so  much  as  common-sense 
and  plain  dealing.  All  great  actions  have  been 
simple,2  and  all  great  pictures  are. 

The  Transfiguration,  by  Raphael,  is  an  emi- 
nent example  of  this  peculiar  merit.  A  calm 
benignant  beauty  shines  over  all  this  picture,  and 
goes  directly  to  the  heart.  It  seems  almost  to 
call  you  by  name.  The  sweet  and  sublime  face 
of  Jesus  is  beyond  praise,  yet  how  it  disappoints 
all  florid  expectations  !  This  familiar,  simple, 
home-speaking  countenance  is  as  if  one  should 
meet  a  friend.  The  knowledge  of  picture  dealers 
has  its  value,  but  listen  not  to  their  criticism 
when  your  heart  is  touched  by  genius.  It  was 
not  painted  for  them,  it  was  painted  for  you  ;  for 
such  as  had  eyes  capable  of  being  touched  by 
simplicity  and  lofty  emotions. 

Yet  when  we  have  said  all  our  fine  things 
about  the  arts,  we  must  end  with  a  frank  con- 
fession that  thd  arts,  as  we  know  them,  are  but 
initial.]  Our  best  praise  is  given  to  what  they 
aimed  and  promised,  not  to  the  actual  result. 
He  has  conceived  meanly  of  the  resources  of 


ART  363 

man,  who  believes  that  the  best  age  of  produc- 
tion is  past.  The  real  value  of  the  Iliad  or  the 
Transfiguration  is  as  signs  of  power;  billows 
or  ripples  they  are  of  the  stream  of  tendency ; 
tokens  of  the  everlasting  effort  to  produce,  which 
even  in  its  worst  estate  the  soul  betrays.1  Art 
has  not  yet  come  to  its  maturity  if  it  do  not  put 
itself  abreast  with  the  most  potent  influences  of 
the  world,  if  it  is  not  practical  and  moral,  if  it 
do  not  stand  in  connection  with  the  conscience, 
if  it  do  not  make  the  poor  and  uncultivated  feel 
that  it  addresses  them  with  a  voice  of  lofty  cheer. 
There  is  higher  work  for  Art  than  the  arts. 
They  are  abortive  births  of  an  imperfect  or  vi- 
tiated instinct.  Art  is  the  need  to  create;  but 
in  its  essence,  immense  and  universal,  it  is  impa- 
tient of  working  with  lame  or  tied  hands,  and  of 
making  cripples  and  monsters,  such  as  all  pic- 
tures and  statues  are.  Nothing  less  than  the  cre- 
ation of  man  and  nature  is  its  end.  A  man  should 
find  in  it  an  outlet  for  his  whole  energy.  He 
may  paint  and  carve  only  as  long  as  he  can  do 
that.  Art  should  exhilarate,  and  throw  down  the 
walls  of  circumstance  on  every  side,  awakening 
in  the  beholder  the  same  sense  of  universal  rela- 
tion and  power  which  the  work  evinced  in  the  ar- 
tist, and  its  highest  effect  is  to  make  new  artists.* 


364  ART 

Already  History  is  old  enough  to  witness  the 
old  age  and  disappearance  of  particular  arts.  The 
art  of  sculpture  is  long  ago  perished  to  any  real 
effect.  It  was  originally  a  useful  art,  a  mode  of 
writing,  a  savage's  record  of  gratitude  or  devo- 
tion, and  among  a  people  possessed  of  a  won- 
derful perception  of  form  this  childish  carving- 
was  refined  to  the  utmost  splendor  of  effect. 
But  it  is  the  game  of  a  rude  and  youthful  peo- 
ple, and  not  the  manly  labor  of  a  wise  and  spir- 
itual nation.  Under  an  oak-tree  loaded  with 
leaves  and  nuts,  under  a  sky  full  of  eternal  eyes, 
I  stand  in  a  thoroughfare;  but  in  the  works  of 
our  plastic  arts  and  especially  of  sculpture,  crea- 
tion is  driven  into  a  corner.  I  cannot  hide  from 
myself  that  there  is  a  certain  appearance  of  pal- 
triness, as  of  toys  and  the  trumpery  of  a  theatre, 
in  sculpture.  Nature  transcends  all  our  moods 
of  thought,  and  its  secret  we  do  not  yet  find. 
But  the  gallery  stands  at  the  mercy  of  our  moods, 
and  there  is  a  moment  when  it  becomes  friv- 
olous. I  do  not  wonder  that  Newton,  with  an 
attention  habitually  engaged  on  the  paths  of 
planets  and  suns,  should  have  wondered  what 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke  found  to  admire  in  "stone 
dolls."  '  Sculpture  may  serve  to  teach  the  pupil 
how  deep  is  the  secret  of  form,  how  purely  the 


ART  365 

spirit  can  translate  its  meanings  into  that  elo- 
quent dialect.  But  the  statue  will  look  cold  and 
false  before  that  new  activity  which  needs  to  roll 
through  all  things,  and  is  impatient  of  counter- 
feits and  things  not  alive.  Picture  and  sculpture 
are  the  celebrations  and  festivities  of  form.  But 
r  true  art  is  never  fixed,  but  always  flowing.  The 
sweetest  music  is  not  in  the  oratorio,  but  in  the 
human  voice  when  it  speaks  from  its  instant 
life  tones  of  tenderness,  truth,  or  courage.  The 
oratorio  has  already  lost  its  relation  to  the  morn- 
ing, to  the  sun,  and  the  earth,  but  that  persuad- 
ing voice  is  in  tune  with  these.  All  works  of  art 
should  not  be  detached,  but  extempore  perform- 
ances. A  great  man  is  a  new  statue  in  every 
attitude  and  action.  A  beautiful  woman  is  a  pic- 
ture which  drives  all  beholders  nobly  mad.  Life 
may  be  lyric  or  epic,  as  well  as  a  poem  or  a 
romance. 

A  true  announcement  of  the  law  of  creation, 
if  a  man  were  found  worthy  to  declare  it,  would 
carry  art  up  into  the  kingdom  of  nature,  and  j 
destroy  its  separate  and  contrasted  existence. 
The  fountainsof  invention  and  beauty  in  modern 
society  are  ajljbu^jnedjup.  A  popular  novel,  a 
theatre,  or  a  ball-room  makes  us  feel  that  we  are 
all  paupers  in  the  almshouse  of  this  world,  with* 


366  ART 

out  dignity,  without  skill  or  industry.  Art  is  as 
poor  and  low.  The  old  tragic  Necessity,  which 
lowers  on  the  brows  even  of  the  Venuses  and 
the  Cupids  of  the  antique,  and  furnishes  the  sole 
apology  for  the  intrusion  of  such  anomalous  fig- 
ures into  nature,  —  namely  that  they  were  inevi- 
table ;  that  the  artist  was  drunk  with  a  passion 
for  form  which  he  could  not  resist,  and  which 
vented  itself  in  these  fine  extravagances,  —  no 
longer  dignifies  the  chisel  or  the  pencil.  But  the 
artist  and  the  connoisseur  now  seek  in  art  the 
exhibition  of  their  talent,  or  an  asylum  from 
the  evils  of  life.  Men  are  not  well  pleased  with 
the  figure  they  make  in  their  own  imaginations, 
and  they  flee  to  art,  and  convey  their  better  sense 
in  an  oratorio,  a  statue,  or  a  picture.  Art  makes 
the  same  effort  which  a  sensual  prosperity  makes ; 
namely  to  detach  the  beautiful  from  the  useful, 
to  do  up  the  work  as  unavoidable,  and,  hating 
it,  pass  on  to  enjoyment.  These  solaces  and 
compensations,  this  division  of  beauty  from  use, 
the  laws  of  nature  do  not  permit.  As  soon  as 
beauty  is  sought,  not  from  religion  and  love  but 
for  pleasure,  it  degrades  the  seeker.  High  beauty 
is  no  longer  attainable  by  him  in  canvas  or  in 
stone,  in  sound,  or  in  lyrical  construction ;  an 
effeminate,  prudent,  sickly  beauty,  which  is  not 


ART  367 

beauty,  is  all  that  can  be  formed ;  for  the  hand 
can  never  execute  any  thing  higher  than  the 
character  can  inspire.1 

The  art  that  thus  separates  is  itself  first  sepa- 
rated. Art  must  not  be  a  superficial  talent,  but 
must  begin  farther  back  in  man.  Now  men  do 
not  see  nature  to  be  beautiful,  and  they  go  to 
make  a  statue  which  shall  be.  They  abhor  men 
as  tasteless,  dull,  and  inconvertible,  and  console 
themselves  with  color-bags  and  blocks  of  mar- 
ble. They  reject  life  as  prosaic,  and  create  a 
death  which  they  call  poetic.  They  despatch 
the  day's  weary  chores,  and  fly  to  voluptuous 
reveries.  They  eat  and  drink,  that  they  may 
afterwards  execute  the  ideal.  Thus  is  art  vili- 
fied ;  the  name  conveys  to  the  mind  its  second- 
ary and  bad  senses  ;  it  stands  in  the  imagination 
as  somewhat  contrary  to  nature,  and  struck  with 
death  from  the  first.  Would  it  not  be  better  to 
begin  higher  up,  —  to  serve  the  ideal  before 
they  eat  and  drink ;  to  serve  the  ideal  in  eating 
and  drinking,  in  drawing  the  breath,  and  in  the 
functions  of  life?  Beauty  must  come  back  to 
the  useful  arts,  and  the  distinction  between  the 
fine  and  the  useful  arts  be  forgotten.  If  his- 
tory were  truly  told,  if  life  were  nobly  spent,  it 
would  be  no  longer  easy  or  possible  to  distin- 


368  ART 

guish  the  one  from  the  other.  In  nature,  all  is 
useful,  all  is  beautiful.  It  is  therefore  beautiful 
because  it  is  alive,  moving,  reproductive ;  it  is 
therefore  useful  because  it  is  symmetrical  and 
fair.  Beauty  will  not  come  at  the  call  of  a  legis- 
lature, nor  will  it  repeat  in  England  or  America 
its  history  in  Greece.  It  will  come,  as  always, 
unannounced,  and  spring  up  between  the  feet 
of  brave  and  earnest  men.  It  is  in  vain  that  we 
look  for  genius  to  reiterate  its  miracles  in  the 
old  arts  ;  it  is  its  instinct  to  find  beauty  and 
holiness  in  new  and  necessary  facts,  in  the  field 
and  road-side,  in  the  shop  and  mill.  Proceed- 
ing from  a  religious  heart  it  will  raise  to  a  divine 
use  the  railroad,  the  insurance  office,  the  joint- 
stock  company ;  our  law,  our  primary  assem- 
blies, our  commerce,  the  galvanic  battery,  the 
electric  jar,  the  prism,  and  the  chemist's  retort ; 
in  which  we  seek  now  only  an  economical  use. 
Is  not  the  selfish  and  even  cruel  aspect  which 
belongs  to  our  great  mechanical  works,  to  mills, 
railways,  and  machinery,  the  effect  of  the  mer- 
cenary impulses  which  these  works  obey  ?  When 
its  errands  are  noble  and  adequate,  a  steamboat 
bridging  the  Atlantic  between  Old  and  New 
England  and  arriving  at  its  ports  with  the  punc- 
tuality of  a  planet,  is  a  step  of  man  into  har- 


ART  36<j 

mony  with  nature.  The  boat  at  St.  Petersburg, 
which  plies  along  the  Lena  by  magnetism,  needs 
little  to  make  it  sublime.  When  science  is  learned 
in  love,  and  its  powers  are  wielded  by  love,  they 
will  appear  the  supplements  and  continuations 
of  the  material  creation.1 


NOTES 


NOTES 


AFTER  the  publication  of  Nature,  the  first  hint  that 
appears  of  the  collection  by  Mr.  Emerson  of  his  writ- 
ings into  a  second  book,  occurs  in  the  end  of  a  jetter  to  Mr. 
Alcott,  written  April  16,  1839,  which  Mr.  Sanborn  gives  in 
his  Memoir  of  Branson  Alcott :  "  1  have  been  writing  a  little, 
and  arranging  old  papers  more,  and  by  and  by  I  hope  to  get 
a  shapely  book  of  Genesis." 

In  a  letter  written  in  April,  1840,  to  Carlyle,  Mr.  Emer- 
son thus  alludes  to  the  Essays :  — 

"  I  am  here  at  work  now  for  a  fortnight  to  spin  some  single 
cord  out  of  my  thousand  and  one  strands  of  every  color  and 
texture  that  lie  ravelled  around  me  in  old  snarls.  We  need  to 
be  possessed  with  a  mountainous  conviction  of  the  value  of  our 
advice  to  our  contemporaries,  if  we  will  take  such  pains  to  find 
what  that  is.  But  no,  It  is  the  pleasure  of  the  spinning  that 
betrays  poor  spinners  into  the  loss  of  so  much  good  time.  I 
shall  work  with  the  more  diligence  on  this  book-to-be  of  mine, 
that  you  inform  me  again  and  again  that  my  penny  tracts1  are 
still  extant;  nay,  that  beside  friendly  men,  learned  and  poetic 
men  read  and  even  review  them.  I  am  like  Scholasticus  of 
the  Greek  Primer,  who  was  ashamed  to  bring  out  so  small  a 
dead  child  before  such  grand  people.  Pygmalion  shall  try  if  he 
cannot  fashion  a  better,  —  certainly  a  bigger."  Four  months 
later  he  tells  of  the  problems  at  home,  —  "a  good  deal  of 
movement  and  tendency  emerging  into  sight  every  day  in 
church  and  state,  in  social  modes  and  in  letters.  You  will  natu- 

i  Nature,  and  the  various  addresses,  published  at  first  separately  in  pam- 
phlet form. 


374  NOTES 

rally  ask  me  if  I  try  my  hand  at  the  history  of  all  this.  .  .  . 
No,  not  in  the  near  and  practical  way  in  which  they  seem  to 
invite.  I  incline  to  write  philosophy,  poetry,  possibility  — 
anything  but  history.  And  yet  this  phantom  of  the  next  age 
limns  himself  sometimes  so  large  and  plain  that  every  feature 
is  apprehensible  and  challenges  a  painter.  ...  I  dot  ever- 
more in  my  endless  journal,  a  line  on  every  knowable  in  na- 
ture ;  but  the  arrangement  loiters  long,  and  I  get  a  brick-kiln 
instead  of  a  house." 

Soon  after  the  coming  in  of  the  new  year  he  sends  word  : 
«'  In  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks  my  little  raft  will  be  afloat. 
Expect  nothing  more  of  my  powers  of  construction,  —  no 
ship-building,  no  clipper,  smack,  nor  skiff  even,  only  boards 
and  logs  tied  together." 

In  his  Journal  he  wrote,  in  January^  1 84J ;  "All  my 
thoughts  are  foresters.  I  have  scarce  a  day-dream  on  which 
the  breath  of  the  pines  has  not  blown  and  their  shadows 
waved.  Shall  I  not  therefore  call  my  little  book  Forest  Es- 
tays  ?" 

The  book  was  published  in  MardjJ^Ji£iajaJjQ_sion^by 
James^Munroe  and  Company. 

Soon  after  Nature  had  appeared,  Carlyle  had  written  to 
his  friend  :  "  There  is  a  man  here  called  John  Sterling, 
.  .  .  whom  I  love  better  than  any  one  I  have  met  with,  since 
a  certain  sky-messenger  alighted  to  me  at  Craigenputtock  and 
vanished  in  the  Blue  again.1  .  .  .  Well,  and  what  then,  cry 
you  ?  Why  then,  this  John  Sterling  has  fallen  overhead  in 
love  with  a  certain  Waldo  Emerson  ;  that  is  all.  He  saw  the 
Httle  book  Nature  lying  here  ;  and,  across  a  whole  silva  silva- 
rum  of  prejudices,  discerned  what  was  in  it,  took  it  to  his 

i  Alluding  to  Emerson's  first  visit  to  him  among  the  moon  of  Nithsdak 
In  1833. 


NOTES  375 

heart,  —  and  indeed  into  his  pocket.  .  .  .  This  is  the  small 
piece  of  pleasant  news,  that  two  sky-messengers  (such  they 
were,  both  of  them*  to  me)  have  met  and  recognized  each 
other,  and  by  God's  blessing  there  shall  one  day  be  a  trio  of 
us  ;  call  you  that  nothing  ?  ' '  Sterling  wrote  to  Emerson  and 
a  noble  friendship  resulted.  Although  they  never  met  in  the 
body,  these  friends  had  more  in  common  with  each  other  in 
their  hope,  their  courage,  and  their  desire  for  exp/ession  in 
poetry  than  either  had  with  Carlyle.  Sterling  died  in  1844. 

Emerson  sent  Sterling  his  Essays,  saying,  "  They  are  not 
yet  a  fortnight  old.  I  have  written  your  name  in  a  copy  and 
sent  it  to  Carlyle  by  the  same  steamer.  ...  I  wish,  but 
scarce  dare  hope,  you  may  find  in  it  any  thing  of  the  pristine 
sacredness  of  thought.  All  thoughts  are  holy  when  they  come 
floating  up  to  us  in  magical  newness  from  the  hidden  Life,  and 
'tis  no  wonder  we  are  enamoured  with  these  Muses  and 
Graces,  until,  in  our  devotion  to  particular  beauties  and  in 
our  efforts  at  artificial  disposition,  we  lose  somewhat  of  our 
universal  sense  and  the  sovereign  eye  of  Proportion.  All  sins, 
literary  and  aesthetic  and  scientific,  as  well  as  moral,  grow  out 
of  unbelief  at  last.  We  must  needs  meddle  ambitiously,  and 
cannot  quite  trust  that  there  is  life,  self-evolving  and  indestruc- 
tible, but  which  cannot  be  hastened,  at  the  heart  of  every  phy- 
sical and  metaphysical  fact.  Yet  how  we  thank  and  greet, 
almost  adore  the  person  who  has  once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime 
treated  any  thing  sublimely,  and  certified  us  that  he  beheld  the 
Law.  The  silence  and  obscurity  in  which  he  acted  are  of  no 
account,  for  every  thing  is  equally  related  to  the  soul. 

"  I  certainly  did  not  mean,  when  I  took  up  this  paper,  to 
write  an  essay  on  Faith,  and  yet  I  am  always  willing  to  de- 
clare how  indigent  I  think  our  poetry  and  all  literature  is 
become  for  want  of  that.  My  thought  had  only  this  scope. 


376  NOTES 

no  more  :  that  though  I  had  long  ago  grown  extremely  discon- 
tented with  my  little  book,  yet  were  the  thoughts  in  it  honest 
in  their  first  rising  and  honestly  reported,  but  that  I  am  very 
sensible  how  much  in  this,  as  in  very  much  greater  matters,  in- 
terference, or  what  we  miscall  art,  will  spoil  true  things."  ' 

Carlyle  now  had  opportunity  to  return  his  friend's  kindness 
in  introducing  him  to  American  readers.  In  ajetter  written 
to  Emerson  on  June  25,  1841,  he  said  :  "  My  second  piece 
of  news  ...  is  that  Emerson's  Essays,  the  book  so  called, 
is  to  be  reprinted  here  ;  nay,  I  think,  is  even  now  at  press. 
.  .  .  Fraser  undertakes  it  on  «  half  profits  ;  '  T.  Carlyle 
writing  a  preface,  which  accordingly  he  did.  .  .  .  The  edi- 
tion is  of  Seven  Hundred  and  Fifty.  .  .  .  With  what  joy 
shall  I  sack  up  the  small  Ten  Pounds  Sterling  perhaps  of 
'  Half  Profits,  '  and  remit  them  to  the  man  Emerson  ;  say- 
ing: «  There,  Man  !  tit  for  tat,  the  reciprocity  not  all  on  one 
side  !  '  I  ought  to  say,  moreover,  that  this  was  a  volunteer 
scheme  of  Fraser'  s;  the  risk  is  all  his,  the  origin  of  it  was 
with  him  :  I  advised  him  to  have  it  reviewed,  as  being  a  really 
noteworthy  Book.  «  Write  you  a  Preface,'  said  he,  and  «  I 
will  reprint  it;  '  to  which,  after  due  delay  and  meditation,  I 
consented." 

In  a  curious  and  characteristic  preface,  among  other  things, 


"  The  name  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  is  not  entirely  new, 
in  England  ;  distinguished  travellers  bring  us  tidings  of  such  a 
man  ;  fractions  of  his  writings  hare  found  their  way  into  the 
hands  of  the  curious  here  ;  fitful  hints  that  there  is  in  New 
England  some  spiritual  notability  called  Emerson  glide  through 
the  reviews  and  magazines. 

"  Emerson's  writings  and  speakings  amount  to  something  ; 

-  -4  Correspondent  between  John  Sterling  and  Ralph  Waldo  Emenon. 


NOTES  377 

tnd  yet,  hitherto,  as  it  seems  to  me,  this  Emerson  is  far  less 
notable  for  what  he  has  spoken  or  done  than  for  the  many 
things  he  has  not  spoken  and  has  forborne  to  do.  .  .  . 

"  For  myself,  I  have  looked  over  with  no  common  feeling 
to  this  brave  Emerson,  seated  by  his  rustic  hearth  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ocean  (yet  not  altogether  parted  from  me  either), 
silently  communing  with  his  own  soul  and  with  the  God's 
World  it  finds  itself  alive  in  yonder.  Pleasures  of  Virtue, 
Progress  of  the  Species,  Black  Emancipation,  New  Tariff, 
Eclecticism,  Locofocoism,  Ghost  of  Improved  Socinianism,  — 
these,  with  many  other  Ghosts  and  substances,  are  squeaking, 
jabbering  according  to  their  capabilities  round  this  man.  To 
one  man  among  the  sixteen  millions  their  jabber  is  all  unmusi- 
cal. The  silent  voices  of  the  stars  above  and  of  the  green  earth 
beneath  are  profitable  to  him  —  tell  him  gradually  that  these 
others  are  but  ghosts  which  will  shortly  have  to  vanish  ;  that 
the  life-fountain  these  proceed  out  of  does  not  vanish.  .  .  . 

"  Emerson,  I  understand,  was  bred  to  theology  ;  of  which 
primary  bent  his  latest  way  of  thoughrsnfl  Bears  traces.  In  a 
very  enigmatic  way,  we  heaTmuch  of  thT "*  Universal  Soul  of 
the,'  etc.,  flickering  like  bright  bodiless  northern  streamers. 
Notions  and  half-notions  of  a  metaphysic,  theosophic  kind  are 
seldom  long  wanting  in  these  Essays.  I  do  not  advise  the 
British  public  to  trouble  itself  much  with  all  that :  still  less  to 
take  offence  at  it.  ...  That  this  little  book  has  no  system, 
and  points  or  stretches  far  beyon"J~aif-^y«t€iii87~trioire-t>f-4ts 
merits.  We  will  call  it  thelibEIoqay  of  a  true~soul  alone  under 
thestars,  in  "this  day." 

IVIr.  Geo/ge  W.  Cooke,  in  his  careful  study  of  the  life  of 
Mr.  Emerson,1  relates  that  five  years  later  the  Countess 

i  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  Ait  Life,  Writing^  and  Phtlotofhy,  Boston  I 
J.  R.  O8good&  Co.  1887. 


378  NOTES 

d'Agoult,  who  wrote  under  the  nom  de  plume  of  "Daniel 
Stern,"  told  in  the  Revue  Ind'ependante  (July)  how  having 
read  a  mention  of  the  Essays  by  Philarete  Chasles  in  an  article 
on  literary  tendencies  in  America,  and  later  heard  a  quotation 
from  them  in  a  lecture  by  a  foreign  poet,  Mickiewicz,  she  tried 
to  obtain  the  book  in  Paris,  but  had  to  send  to  London  for  it. 
She  was  greatly  pleased,  and  in  her  article  expressed  surprise  at 
the  general  ignorance  concerning  the  writer.  "  The  singular 
charm  of  the  Essays,"  she  said,  "  is  that  we  hold  him  account- 
able for  nothing,  because  he  pretends  to  nothing.  He  draws 
you  after  him  with  irresistible  bonhomie.  There  is  no  difficulty 
in  following  him,  for  we  breathe  a  salubrious  atmosphere  in  his 
work.  Nothing  offends,  not  even  the  discords,  because  all  is 
resolved  and  harmonized  in  the  sentiment  of  a  superior  truth." 
In  Berlin,  Herman  Grimm  (who  later  wrote  the  lives  of 
Michelangelo  and  Raphael),  while  waiting  his  turn  in  the 
parlor  of  the  American  dentist,  chanced  to  pick  up  the  Essays 
from  the  table  ;  "read  a  page,  and  was  startled  to  find  that 
J  had  undej]stojid_jTOthing,  though  tolerably  well  acquainted 
with  English.  I  inquired  as  to  the  author.  In  reply  I  was 
told  that  he  was  the  first  writer  in  America,  an  eminently 
gifted  man,  but  somewhat  crazed  at  times,  and  often  unable 
to  explain  his  own  words.  Notwithstanding,  no  one  was  heH 
in  such  esteem  for  his  character  and  for  his  prose  writings.  In 
short,  the  opinion  fell  upon  my  ears  as  so  strange  that  I  re- 
opened the  book.  Some  sentences,  upon  a  second  reading, 
shot  like  a  Kpam_nf  light  iritQ_my_very  soul^and  Ijvas  moved 
to  put  thebook  in  myjpocket,  that  I  might  read  it  more_atten- 
tavely"at~home.  ...  I  took  Webster's  Dictionary  and  began 
thread.  The  cmisjr^cliQii_o£jh£jemences  struck  me  as  very 
extraordinary.  I  soon  discovered  the  secret  :  they  were  real 
tRoughtsTan  individual  language,  a  sincere  man  that  I  had  be- 


NOTES  379 

fore  me  ;  naught  superficial,  second-hand.  Enough !  I  bought 
the  book  !  From  that  time  I  have  never  ceased  to  read  Emer- 
son's works,  and  whenever  I  take  up  a  volume  anew  it  seems 
to  me  as  if  I  were  reading  it  for  the  first  time. '  * 

But  at  home  the  book  was  not  well  received  in  all  quarters. 

Mr.  Cooke,  in  his  biography,  quotes  an  author  in  the 
Princeton  Review  who  had  found  the  Essays  "  more  devoid  of 
real  meaning  than  any  other  book  which  ever  fell  into  his 
hands,  and  thought  such  essays  could  be  produced  through  a 
lifetime  as  rapidly  as  a  human  pen  could  be  made  to  move." 

Another  critic,  a  distinguished  classical  scholar  connected 
with  one  of  the  universities,  seems  to  have  recognized  Mr. 
Emerson's  debt  to  the  Greek  and,  through  these,  the  Oriental 
philosophers,  seeing  in  the  ideas  set  forth  "ancient  errors, 
mistaken  for  new  truths  and  disguised  in  the  drapery  of  a 
misty  rhetoric." 

HISTORY 

The  first  essay  in  the  volume,  "  History,"  was  not  delivered 
as  a  single  lecture,  but  in  writing  it  Mr.  Emerson  made  use 
of  passages  from  lectures  in  three  distinct  courses  ;  namely, 
that  on  "English  Literature"  (1835-36),  on  "The  Philo- 
sophy of  History"  (1836-37),  and  on  "Human  Life" 
(1837-38),  as  is  shown  by  Mr.  Cabot  in  the  chronological 
list  of  lectures  and  addresses  in  the  Appendix  (F)  to  his 
Memoir. 

The  essay  is  a  fit  gateway  to  those  that  lie  behind,  for  on  its 
threshold  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Universal  Mind,  and  beyond 
will  be  found  those  depending  on  and  illustrating  this,  the 
Unity  underlying  the  Flowing  of  Nature  through  endless  cycles 
of  Protean  disguises,  the  Symbolism  of  Nature,  the  beautj 


380  NOTES 

of  Law,  working  forward  and  upward  alike  in  Nature,  in 

races,  and  in  the  individual  and  his  works. 

The  course  on  "  The  Philosophy  of  History  "  ( 1 836-37) 

had  the  following  lectures,  many  of  which  appear  as  such  or  in 

their  matter  in  the  Essays. 
I.   Introduction    (History  VI.    Religion, 

has  been  ill  written  ;  VII.   Society. 

its  meaning   and    fu-          VIII.   Trades    and    Profes- 
ture,  etc.)  sions. 

II.  Humanity  of  Science.  IX.   Manners. 

III.  Art.  X.   Ethics. 

IV.  Literature.  XI.   Present  Age. 
V.  Politics.                                   XII.  Individualism. 

In  his  Journal,  Mr.  Emerson  thus  lays  out  the  course  in 
advance,  with  the  belief  in  the  Over-Soul  as  the  foundation 
of  all. 

There  is  one  soul. 

It  is  related  to  the  world. 

Art  is  its  action  thereon. 

Science  finds  its  methods. 

Literature  is  its  record. 

Religion  is  the  emotion  of  reverence  that  it  inspires. 

Ethics  is  the  soul  illustrated  in  human  life. 

Society  is  the  finding  of  this  soul  by  individuals  in  each 
other. 

Trades  are  the  learning  the  soul  in  nature  by  labor. 

Politics  is  the  activity  of  the  soul  illustrated  in  power. 

Manners  are  silent  and  mediate  expressions  of  soul. 

Page  2,  note  I.  Both  of  these  mottoes  appear  in  the 
first  edition  :  in  both  is  the  thought  of  the  Over- Soul,  which 


NOTES  381 

later  appeared  in  Oriental  form  in  Brahma.  The  desire  to 
express  himself  in  verse,  which  Mr.  Emerson  felt  so  strongly, 
had  so  far  overcome  his  humility  that  during  the  months  in 
which  he  was  preparing  this  essay  he  had  contributed  to  the 
first  number  of  the  Dial  "The  Problem,"  and  "The 
Sphinx  "  appeared  in  the  third. 

Page  4,  note  i.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Sphinx's 
fatal  riddle,  which  CEdipus  solved,  related  to  Man  in  his  in- 
fancy, his  prime  and  his  decline. 

In  the  end  of  Nature  (vol.  i. ),  man  as  a  microcosm  had 
been  considered,  and  Herbert  brought  to  testify  in  his  beauti- 
ful poem  "  Man." 

Page  j ,  note  I.  In  this  passage,  and  one  in  "  Self-Reli- 
ance,"—  "An  institution  is  the  lengthened  shadow  of  one 
man,"  with  the  work  of  St.  Anthony,  Luther,  Fox,  Wesley 
and  Clarkson  as  instances,  —  came  out  Mr.  Emerson's  belief 
in  the  duty  and  the  power  of  the  man  of  thought,  a  messenger 
of  the  Eternal  Mind. 

Page  6,  note  /.  In  the  affectionate  sympathy  for  reading 
boys,  which  crops  out  so  often  in  his  books,  memories  of  his 
boyhood  and  of  his  brothers  and  some  near  friends,  like  Dr. 
William  H.  Furness,  come  to  light. 

Page  f,  note  z. 

Methought  the  sky  looked  scornful  down 
On  all  was  base  in  man. 

"  Walden,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  8,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  often  nsed  to  speak  of  the 
pitiful  figure  that  certain  scholars  and  statesmen  presented,  ut- 
tering elevated  sentiments  about  Liberty  and  Justice  in  1776, 
and  being  dumb  on  the  subject  of  the  flagrant  violation  of  these 
principles  in  their  own  day. 


382  NOTES 

Page  p,  note  I.  That  a  man  was  principally  of  value  fa 
his  "  atmosphere,"  and  an  event  for  the  soul  of  it  which 
survived  for  an  example  or  in  a  poem,  was  a  favorite  idea 
with  Mr.  Emerson.  He  praised  Sterling's  line  in  Alfred  tfa 
Harper  y  — 

Still  lives  the  song,  though  Regnar  dies! 

With  Swedenborg  he  valued  Nature  as  a  symbol. 

Page  IO,  note  I.  I  am  indebted  to  Professor  Charles  Eliot 
Norton  for  calling  my  attention  to  the  probable  compounding 
of  the  name  Marmaduke  Robinson,  through  a  slip  of  Mr. 
Emerson's  memory,  out  of  the  names  of  the  two  Quakers  hung 
on  Boston  Common  in  1659,  Marmaduke  Stevenson  and 
William  Robinson. 

Page  12,  note  I.  In  "The  Problem"  he  describes  the 
evolution  of  the  grand  architecture,  the  temples  and  cathe- 
drals, "out  of  Thought's  interior  sphere,"  and  Nature's 
ready  adoption  of  them  as  her  own. 

Page  if,  note  z.  Mr.  Emerson  was  much  more  alive  to 
the  beauty  of  form  than  of  color.  Sculpture  appealed  to  him 
more  than  painting. 

Page  15,  note  2.  The  doctrine  of  the  pervading  unity 
which  appears  in  the  poem  "Xenophanes,"  written  in  1834, 
hence  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  published  poems. 

Page  16,  note  I,  In  the  month  of  April,  1839,  Carlyle 
sent  Raphael  Morghen's  engraving  of  the  Aurora,  by  Guido 
in  the  Rospigliosi  palace  in  Rome,  to  Mr.  Emerson,  say- 
ing, "  It  is  my  wife's  memorial  to  your  wife.  .  .  .  Two 
houses  divided  by  wide  seas  are  to  understand  always  thaf 
they  are  united  nevertheless."  The  picture  still  hangs  in  the 
parlor  of  Mr.  Emerson's  home,  with  the  inscription  which 
accompanied  it :  «« Will  the  lady  of  Concord  hang  up  this 


NOTES  383 

Italian  sun-chariot  somewhere  in  her  Drawing  Room,  and, 
looking  at  it,  think  sometimes  of  a  household  here  which  haa 
good  cause  never  to  forget  hers.  T.  CARLYLE." 

Mr.  Emerson  used  to  point  out  to  his  children  how  the 
varied  repetition  of  the  manes,  heads  and  prancing  forefeet 
of  the  horses  were  imitations  of  the  curved  folds  of  a  great 
cumulus  cloud. 

Page  17,  note  i.  Here,  as  in  the  two  essays  on  Art,  in 
this  volume  and  in  Society  and  Solitude,  the  same  thought 
appears,  embodied  also  in  "The  Problem"  in  the  lines  be- 
ginning, — 

The  hand  that  rounded  Peter's  dome,  etc. 

Page  19,  note  I. 

Come  see  the  north  wind's  masonry,  etc. 

"The  Snow-Storm,"  Poems. 

Page  21,  note  I.  The  works  of  Heeren  and  others  on 
Egypt,  and  the  architectural  handbooks  of  Fergusson  and 
Garbett,  with  some  of  Ruskin's  writings,  were  read  with  inter- 
est by  Mr.  Emerson.  The  idea  of  Evolution,  whether  in 
the  works  of  Nature  or  of  man,  early  and  always  appealed  to 
him. 

Perhaps  the  first  suggestion  of  the  ideas  on  this  page  came 
to  him  in  his  boyhood,  in  the  welcome  form  of  Scott's  descrip- 
tion of  Melrose  Abbey  in  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel: — - 
The  moon  on  the  east  oriel  shone 
Through  slender  shafts  of  shapely  stone, 

By  foliaged  tracery  combined  ; 
Thou  wouldst  have  thought  some  fairy's  hand 
'Twixt  poplars  straight  the  osier  wand 
In  many  a  freakish  knot  had  twined, 


384  NOTES 

Then  framed  a  spell  when  the  work  was  done, 
And  changed  the  willow  wreaths  to  stone. 

Page  22,  note  I.  Astaboras  was  a  river  of  ^Ethiopia  mtn« 
•doned  by  Strabo. 

Page  22,  note  2.  The  following  is  the  version  of  the  re- 
mainder of  this  paragraph  in  the  first  edition  of  the  Essays :  — 

"The  difference  between  men  in  this  respect  is  the  faculty 
of  rapid  domestication,  the  power  to  find  his  chair  and  bed 
everywhere  which  one  man  has,  and  another  has  not.  Some 
men  have  so  much  of  the  Indian  left,  have  constitutionally 
such  habits  oraccommodation,  that  at  sea,  or  in  the  forest,  or 
in  the  snow,  they  sleep  as  warm  and  dine  with  as  good  appe- 
tite and  associate  as  happily  as  in  their  own  house.  And,  to 
push  this  old  fact  one  degree  nearer,  we  may  find  it  a  repre- 
•entative  of  a  permanent  fact  in  human  nature.  The  intellec- 
tual nomadism  is  the  faculty  of  objectiveness,  or  of  eyes  which 
everywhere  feed  themselves.  Who  hath  such  eyes  every- 
where  falls  into  easy  relation  with  his  fellow-men.  Every 
man,  every  thing,  is  a  prize,  a  study,  a  property  to  him,  and 
this  love  smooths  his  brow,  joins  him  to  men,  and  makes  him 
beautiful  and  beloved  in  their  sight.  His  house  is  a  wagon  : 
he  roams  through  all  latitudes  as  easily  as  a  Calmuc." 

Page  22,  note  3. 

And  well  he  loved  to  quit  his  home 

And  Calmuc  in  his  wagon  roam 

To  read  new  landscapes  and  old  skies. 

"The  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  23,  note  i.  In  the  balancing  of  the  claims  on  the 
scholar  of  society  and  solitude,  so  frequent  in  his  writings^ 
Mr.  Emerson  always  gives  most  weight  to  solitude,  yet  admit- 
ting the  necessity,  for  his  sanity,  his  character,  and  his  supply 


NOTES  385 

of  raw  material  to  work  on,  of  mingling  with  the  world  and 
sharing  the  common  exposures  and  experiences. 

In  his  journal  of  his  first  trip  to  Europe,  it  is  remarkable 
how  little  he  found  to  detain  him  and  how  anxious  he  was  to 
return  to  his  proper  field  of  action  and  work.  The  same  feel- 
ing was  very  marked  during  his  visit  to  Europe  and  Egypt  in 
his  old  age. 

Page  2J,  note  i.  The  freedom,  the  dignity  and  profit  of 
self-help  was  a  rule  of  practice,  not  a  mere  theory,  with  Mr. 
Emerson. 

Page  28,  note  7.  Many  strange  pilgrims  were  on  the 
road  in  those  days,  ridiculous  enough  to  the  eye  of  the  aver- 
age New  Englander,  and  these  were  attracted  to  Concord  by 
the  report  that  there  hospitality  to  thought  could  be  found. 
Their  host  ministered  to  their  physical  wants,  and  to  theit 
hunger  to  be  heard.  He  took  them  by  "  their  best  handle," 
—  and,  as  he  wrote  of  his  ideal  man,  "The  madness  which 
he  harbored  he  did  not  share." 

Page  29,  note  i.  The  respect  for  the  old  religion  that 
made  New  England,  remained  deeply  ingrained  in  Mr.  Emer- 
son, though  he  had  left  that  phase  of  belief  and  spiritual  growth 
behind.  Yet  it  was  always  before  him  in  the  fiery  faith  of  his 
Aunt  Mary,  and  in  his  own  household  in  the  devoted  Chris- 
tianity of  his  mother  and  his  wife.  He  was  aware  of  the  losses 
that  might  well  accompany  too  extreme  reaction  from  early 
faith,  and  the  Luther  anecdote  might  well  have  had  something 
akin  to  it  in  his  domestic  experience. 

Page  jo,  note  I,    Compare  Byron's  Prometheus. 
Titan,  to  whose  immortal  eye 
The  sufferings  of  mortality, 
Seen  in  their  sad  reality, 
Were  not  as  things  that  gods  despise,  etc. 


386  NOTES 

Page  31,  note  I.  The  power  of  true  vision  to  unsettle 
and  move  and  elevate  everything,  indeed  the  old  doctrine  of 
"The  Flowing"  of  Heracleitus,  the  dance  of  the  trees  and 
the  very  mountains  that  Orpheus  led,  occurs  in  the  prose, 
but  especially  in  Mr.  Emerson's  '«  Poet  "  in  the  Appendix 
to  the  Poems. 

Page  32,  note  I. 

I  drank  at  thy  fountains 
False  waters  of  thirst. 

"  Ode  to  Beauty, "Poems. 

Page  32t  note  2.  "  We  probably  perceive  the  influence 
of  these  latent  inheritances  "  [dormant  tendencies  to  suppressed 
bestial  parts  of  traits]  « '  when,  in  the  battle  of  existence, 
species  undergo  retrograde  changes,  or,  as  naturalists  phrase  it, 
revert  to  a  lower  state  of  being.  ...  In  the  moral  as  well 
as  the  physical  world,  we  may  see  these  hidden  seeds  of  an- 
cestral impulse,  when  no  longer  overshadowed  by  the  newer 
and  therefore  stronger  motives,  spring  into  activity  and  win 
the  creature  back  to  a  lower  estate." —  The  Interpretation  of 
Nature,  by  Professor  N.  S.  Shaler.  Boston,  1893. 

Page  JJ,  note  I.  See  the  opening  paragraphs  of  "  The 
Poet,"  Essays,  Second  Series,  and  "  Poetry  and  Imagina- 
tion," Letters  and  Social  Aims,  for  the  true  use  of  facts. 

Mr.  Emerson  eagerly  sought  facts,  not  for  themselves,  but 
as  oracles  from  which  he  was  to  draw  the  hidden  but  univer- 
sal meaning.  In  his  Journal  in  1847,  he  speaks  of  the  avarice 
with  which  he  looks  at  the  Insurance  Office,  and  his  longing 
to  be  admitted  to  hear  the  gossip  of  the  notables  of  the  village 
there:  "  For  an  hour  to  be  invisible  and  hear  the  best  informed 
men  retail  their  information  he  would  pay  great  prices,  but 
every  company  dissolves  at  his  approach.  He  so  eager  and 
they  so  coy.  .  .  . 


NOTES  387 

«« We  want  society  on  our  own  terms.  Each  man  has  facts 
that  I  want,  and,  though  I  talk  with  him,  I  cannot  get  at 
them  for  want  of  the  clue.  He  does  not  know  what  to  do 
with  his  facts:  I  know.  .  .  .  Here  is  all  Boston,  —  all  rail- 
roads, all  manufactures  and  trade,  in  the  head  of  this  well- 
informed  merchant  at  my  side.  .  .  .  Here  is  Agassiz  with 
his  theory  of  anatomy  and  nature;  I  am  in  his  chamber  and  I 
do  not  know  what  question  to  put.  .  .  .  Here  is  all  Fourier 
in  Brisbane's  head;  all  language  in  Kraitser's;  all  Swedenborg 
in  Reed's;  all  the  Revolution  in  old  Adams's  head;  all  mod- 
ern Europe  and  America  in  John  Quincy  Adams's,  and  I 
cannot  appropriate  a  fragment  of  all  their  experience.  .  .  . 
Now  if  I  could  cast  a  spell  on  this  man  at  my  side,  and  see 
his  pictures  without  his  intervention  or  organs,  and  having 
learned  that  lesson,  turn  the  spell  on  another,  lift  up  the  cover 
of  another  hive,  and  see  the  cells  and  suck  the  honey  .  .  . 
they  were  not  the  poorer  and  I  the  richer." 

Page  34,  note  I.  When  asked  by  one  of  his  children 
whether  some  verse  of  Shakspeare,  or  perhaps  it  was  a  picture 
by  Michelangelo,  really  was  meant  to  carry  with  it  the  sig- 
nificance attributed  to  it,  Mr.  Emerson  answered:  "  Every 
one  has  a  right  to  be  credited  with  whatever  of  good  another 
can  find  in  his  work." 

Page  35,  note  I.  Perceforeit  was  a  medizeval  French  his- 
torical romance,  its  scene  being  Britain  in  the  pre-Arthurian 
period. 

Amadis  de  Gaul,  a  romance  written  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, by  Vasco  de  Lobeira,  in  Portugal,  but  which  became  very 
popular  in  later  versions  in  other  tongues. 

The  Boy  and  the  Mantle,  an  ancient  English  ballad.  See 
Percy's  Reliques. 

,  note  I.    This  passage  with  regard  to  man's  fac- 


388  NOTES 

nlties  occurred  in  a  lecture  called  "  The  Doctrine  of  the 
Hands  "  in  the  course  on  "  Human  Culture,"  1837-38. 

Page  37,  note  I.  See  Shakspeare's  Henry  VI.,  Part  I.* 
Act  II.,  Scene  iii. 

Page  40,  note  I.  It  was  a  characteristic  of  Mr.  Emerson' k 
writings  to  concentrate  attention  on  some  aspect  of  the  matter 
on  which  he  was  speaking.  He  did  not  weaken  a  sentence,  a 
paragraph,  even,  in  some  cases,  a  whole  poem  or  lecture,  by 
much  qualification  of  his  statement.  He  reserved  the  counter- 
statement,  the  other  aspect,  to  present  as  neatly  in  another 
place.  Hence,  if  but  one  essay  be  read,  his  position  with 
reference  to  the  church,  or  towards  society,  or  reform,  might 
be  misunderstood. 

Page  41,  note  I.  This  passage  appears  in  verse  in 
«'  Limits,"  Poems,  Appendix. 


SELF-RELIANCE 

During  the  period  of  Mr.  Emerson's  ministry  in  Boston  he 
had  written  thus  in  his  Journal  :  — 

«•  CHARDON  ST.,  OCT.  14™,  1832. 

tf  The  great  difficulty  is  that  men  do  not  think  enough  of 
themselves,  do  not  consider  what  it  is  that  they  are  sacrificing 
when  they  follow  in  a  herd,  or  when  they  cater  for  their  estab- 
lishment. They  know  not  how  divine  is  a  Man.  I  know  you 
say  such  a  man  thinks  too  much  of  himself.  Alas  !  he  is  wholly 
ignorant.  He  yet  wanders  in  the  outer  darkness,  in  the  skirts 
and  shadows  of  himself,  and  has  not  seen  his  inner  light. 

"  Would  it  not  be  a  text  of  a  useful  discourse  to  young  men, 
that  every  man  must  learn  in  a  different  way  ?  How  much 
is  lost  by  imitation.  Our  best  friends  may  be  our  worst  ene* 


NOTES  389 

mies.  A  man  should  learn  to  detect  and  foster  that  gleam  of 
light  which  flashes  across  his  mind  from  within  far  more  than 
the  lustre  of  the  whole  firmament  without.  Yet  he  dismisses 
without  notice  his  peculiar  thought  because  it  is  peculiar.  The 
time  will  come  when  he  will  postpone  all  acquired  knowledge 
to  this  spontaneous  wisdom,  and  will  watch  for  this  illumina- 
tion more  than  those  who  watch  for  the  morning.  For  this 
is  the  principle  by  which  the  other  is  to  be  arranged.  This 
thinking  would  go  to  show  the  significance  of  self-education, 
that  in  reality  there  is  no  other,  for  all  other  is  nought  without 
this." 

This  entry  is  continued  by  the  passage  now  appearing  in 
the  latter  part  of  "  Self- Reliance "  beginning,  "That  which 
each  can  do  best,  none  but  his  Maker  can  teach  him,"  end' 
ing  with  the  sentence  about  " the  Scipionism  of  Scipio." 
After  several  more  jottings  as  to  what  might  be  said  on  the 
subject,  he  writes:  — 

"Landor  knows  many  things  —  treats  of  the  continual 
appeal  that  is  made  from  the  facts  to  the  feelings,  from  the 
world  to  the  high,  inward,  infallible  Judge,  ever  suggesting  a 
grander  creation,"  etc. 

In  the  entry  of  the  preceding  day  he  transcribes  various 
sentences  from  Lander's  Imaginary  Conversations  (mostly 
from  the  talk  of  Epicurus  with  his  friends),  among  them  this: 
"Since  all  transcendent,  all  true  and  genuine  greatness  must 
be  of  a  man's  own  raising,  and  only  on  the  foundation  that 
the  hand  of  God  has  laid,  do  not  let  any  touch  it:  keep  them 
off  civilly,  but  keep  them  off." 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  writings  of  Landor,  read  the  year 
before  Mr.  Emerson  sought  him  out  in  Rome,  may  have  given 
the  original  push  towards  the  writing  of  this  essay  on  ' '  Self- 
Reliance."  A  small  portion  of  the  essay  came  from  the  lecture 


J9Q  NOTES 

"  Individualism,"  the  last  in  the  course  on  "  The  Philosophy 
of  History"  in  1836—37,  and  other  passages  from  the  lec- 
tures "  School,"  "  Genius,"  and  "  Duty  "  in  the  course  on 
"Human  Life."  1838—39. 

In  reading  this  essay,  it  is  well  to  call  to  mind,  1st,  Mr. 
Emerson's  fear  of  weakening  the  effect  of  his  presentation  of 
a  subject  by  qualification  ;  zd,  That  the  Self  he  refers  to  is 
the  higher  self,  man's  share  of  divinity.  Hence  "  The  Over- 
Soul  "  should  be  read  after  "  Self- Reliance." 

Journal,  Oct.  23,  1840.  "And  must  I  go  and  do  some- 
what if  I  would  learn  new  secrets  of  self-reliance  ?  for  my 
chapter  is  not  finished.  But  self-reliance  is  precisely  that  secret 
to  make  your  supposed  deficiency  redundancy.  If  I  am  true, 
the  theory  is,  the  very  want  of  action,  my  very  impotency, 
shall  become  a  greater  excelling  than  all  skill  and  toil." 

Page  45,  note  I.  Perhaps  these  were  the  poems  of  Wash- 
ington Allston.  His  "  Paint -King  "  is  quoted  in  the  chapter 
on  Plato  in  Representative  Men.  If  not  these,  it  is  probable 
that  William  Blake's  remarkable  poems  are  alluded  to. 

Page  46,  note  I.  This  image  recalls  the  departure  of  the 
Day  in  his  poem,  when  the  thoughtless  poet  from  among  her 
proffered  gifts  chose  — 

A  few  herbs  and  apples  .   .   . 

...  I,  too  late, 

Under  her  solemn  fillet  saw  the  scorn. 

Page  4J ,  note  i.    The  doctrine  of  "The  Over-Soul." 
Page  48,  note  I.    Sympathy  for  children,  loving  reverence 
for   unspoiled   boys   and   girls,  was  part  of  Mr.  Emerson's 
character,  and  appears  throughout  his  writings,  especially  in 
"Domestic  Life"  and  "Education." 


NOTES  391 

Page  49,  note  I.  An  annoyance  at  the  notoriety  which 
followed  his  action  with  regard  to  the  rite  of  the  Last  Supper 
in  his  church,  and  later,  on  his  simple  statement  to  the  Divin- 
ity students  of  the  message  that  came  to  him  with  regard  to 
the  torpor  of  the  church  of  that  day,  and  their  resulting  duties, 
shows  in  Mr.  Emerson's  letters  and  journals  at  these  times 
rather  than  any  deeper  trouble.  It  is  that  "sad  self-know- 
ledge" of  Uriel. 

P*ge  S2'  note  *•  A  characteristic  case  of  his  presentation 
of  aspects.  "  But  it  is  the  fault  of  our  rhetoric  that  we  cannot 
strongly  state  one  fact  without  seeming  to  belie  some  other." 
—  "  History." 

Page  52,  note  2.  Of  his  "own  poor"  and  his  own 
causes,  Mr.  Emerson  was  mindful,  and  his  hand  was  free. 

Page  54,  note  i.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  Mr.  Emer- 
son was  an  independent  in  politics,  as  in  social  or  ecclesiasti- 
cal movements.  He  writes  in  his  Journal :  "The  relation  of 
men  of  thought  to  society  is  always  the  same;  they  refuse  that 
necessity  of  mediocre  men,  to  take  sides.  They  keep  their 
own  equilibrium.  The  sun's  path  is  never  parallel  to  the 
equator. ' ' 

Page  57,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  said,  "  I  deny  personal- 
ity to  God  because  it  is  too  little  —  not  too  much." 

Page  58,  note  I.  It  may  be  interesting  to  reproduce  here 
the  version  of  the  first  edition  with  a  ruder  vigor,  more  adapted 
to  delivery  in  the  Lyceum. 

"  With  consistency  a  great  soul  has  simply  nothing  to  do. 
He  may  as  well  concern  himself  with  his  shadow  on  the  wall. 
Out  upon  your  guarded  lips!  Sew  them  up  with  pack-thread, 
do !  else,  if  you  would  be  a  man,  speak  what  you  think  to-day 
in  words  as  hard  as  cannon-balls,  and  to-morrow  speak  what 
to-morrow  thinks  in  hard  words  again,  though  it  contradict 


39*  NOTES 

everything  you  said  to-day.  Ah,  then,  exclaim  the  aged 
ladies,  you  shall  be  sure  to  be  misunderstood!  Misunderstood! 
It  is  a  right  fool's  word.  Is  it  so  bad  then  to  be  misunder- 
stood ?  Pythagoras  was  misunderstood,  and  Socrates,  anc 
Jesus,  and  Luther,  and  Copernicus,  and  Galileo,  and  Newton, 
and  every  pure  and  wise  spirit  that  ever  took  flesh.  To  be 
great  is  to  be  misunderstood." 
P*g*  58*  note  2. 

As  sunbeams  stream  through  liberal  space 
And  nothing  jostle  or  displace, 
So  waved  the  pine-tree  through  my  thought 
And  fanned  the  dreams  it  never  brought. 

"Woodnotes,"  II.,  Poems. 

Page  6l,  note  i.  Mr.  Emerson's  reading  was  largely  in 
biographies.  For  novels  and  romances  he  cared  little,  but  the 
human,  the  heroic,  the  individual  in  historic  characters,  he  was 
keen  to  find  out,  and  equally  so  the  natural  speech,  the  inde- 
pendent action  and  native  refinement  in  persons  whom  he  met, 
whether  high  or  low.  From  his  childhood  he  copied  anec- 
dotes of  persons,  and  he  read  them  to  his  scholars.  Plutarch 
was  his  delight.  Dr.  Holmes  interested  himself  in  making  a 
list  of  the  persons  most  often  referred  to  by  Mr.  Emerson, 
and  found  that  after  Shakspeare,  Napoleon,  and  Plato  came 
Plutarch,  and  there  were  seventy  references  to  him. 

Page  62,  note  I.  A  version  of  this  story  is  the  Induction 
of  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew. 

Page  64,  note  I.  This  paragraph  furnishes  two  instances 
of  the  nicety  of  Mr.  Emerson's  choice  of  words  in  closest 
accordance  with  their  derivation  to  make  clear  his  thought. 
His  doctrine,  —  that  there  was  one  great  source  of  all  special 
manifestation  of  spirit,  which  was  from  the  beginning  [«4 


NOTES  393 

origin e —  "In  the  Beginning  was  the  Word"]  ;  that  this 
spirit  was  self-renewed  in  each  one  who  would  listen,  by 
teachings  from  within  [in-tuitionsj,  and  could  go  out  from  the 
receiver  to  help  the  world  [tuitions],  —  made  clearer  by  ex- 
actly fitting  words,  shows  the  real  Self  on  which  men  shall 
rely. 

Pag:  65,  note  i.  He  went  alone  to  the  woods  to  listen. 
Perhaps  his  early  friends  among  the  Quakers  at  New  Bedford 
had  confirmed  this  tendency  in  him  to  wait  until  the  Spirit 
spoke.  He  felt  himself  the  mere  ambassador  charged  to  faith- 
fully deliver  the  message  committed  to  him.  This  must  be  its 
own  evidence  and  it  was  not  for  him  to  argue  about  it. 

Page  67,  note  I.  Compare  the  seventh  stanza  of  "  The 
Sphinx." 

Page  6p,  note  I.  Though  Mr.  Emerson's  is  by  no  means 
a  Latin  style,  the  training  of  his  youth  shows  often  in  the 
use  of  words  of  Latin  origin,  not  as  adjectives  but  as  present 
participles;  as  "man,  agent  and  patient,"  and  here  "power 
not  confident  but  agent." 

Page  71,  note  i, 

Hold  of  the  Maker,  not  the  Made  ; 
Sit  with  the  Cause,  or  grim  or  glad. 
"Fragments  on  The  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  72,  note  I.  "  Respect  the  child,  respect  him  to  the 
end,  but  also  respect  yourself.  Be  the  companion  of  his 
thought,  the  friend  of  his  friendship,  the  lover  of  his  virtue,  — 
but  no  kinsman  of  his  sin.  Let  him  find  you  so  true  to  your- 
se'f  that  you  are  the  irreconcilable  hater  of  his  vice  and  the 
imperturbable  slighter  of  his  trifling."  —  "Education,"  Lee- 
f*res  and  Biographical  Sketches. 

Page  14,  note  I.    After  the  somewhat  startling  and  radical 


394  NOTES 

counsels  of  the  last  paragraph,  it  is  well  that  some  mitigation 
of  their  drastic  quality  should  follow.  Dr.  Holmes  does  well  in 
calling  attention  to  what  follows  to  show  how  Mr.  Emerson 
"  guarded  his  proclamation  of  self-reliance  as  the  guide  of 
mankind." 

Page  76,  note  I.  In  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, many  a  New  England  boy  thus  acquired  experience  and 
laid  the  foundations  of  his  fortune,  pecuniary  or  intellectual. 
Mr.  Alcott  went  on  foot  with  his  pack  more  than  once  through 
Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  furnishing  Connecticut  wares  or 
teaching,  at  the  option  of  the  owners  of  the  plantations. 

Page  78,  note  I.  While  studying  divinity,  Mr.  Emerson 
one  day,  as  he  worked  in  his  uncle's  hayfield  beside  a  Meth- 
odist farm-hand,  fell  into  talk  with  him.  This  man  maintained 
that  men  are  always  praying,  and  that  all  prayers  are  answered. 
This  statement  interested  Mr.  Emerson,  and  on  this  theme 
he  wrote  his  first  sermon,  adding  for  a  third  point  that  it  be- 
hooves men  to  well  consider  these  acted  prayers.  After  his 
"approbation  to  preach,"  he  read  this  sermon  in  the  pulpit 
of  his  kind  uncle,  Rev.  Mr.  Samuel  Ripley,  of  Waltham,  and 
the  next  day  a  stranger  addressed  him  in  the  stage-coach,  say- 
ing, "  Young  man,  you  '11  never  preach  a  better  sermon  than 
that." 

A  short  paper,  "  Prayers,"  originally  printed  in  the  Dial, 
is  included  in  the  volume  Natural  History  of  Intellect, 

Page  80,  note  I. 

The  inevitable  morning 
Finds  them  who  in  cellars  be. 

•'  The  World-Soul,"  Poems. 

Page  82,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson,  when  he  first  went 
abroad  in  1833,  was  sick  and  sad,  with  prospects  all  unsettled, 


NOTES  395 

tnd  he  was  little  engaged  by  the  novelty  and  beauty  of  the 
sights  which  met  his  eye  when,  after  a  short  stay  in  Malta,  he 
landed  at  Naples.  This  paragraph  reflects  the  tone  of  his 
journals,  and  in  them  he  wrote  verses  recording  his  feeling 
at  Naples  and  at  Rome.  Both  of  these  are  printed  in  the 
Appendix  to  the  Poems. 

But  his  call  to  his  appointed  work  made  him  through  life  a 
bad  visitor,  and  also  traveller,  except  in  the  line  of  his  dutjr, 
when  his  lines  in  ««  Woodnotes  "  were  true  for  him  :  — 

Go  where  he  will,  the  wise  man  is  at  home,   .   .  . 
Where  his  clear  spirit  leads  him,  there  's  his  road, 
By  God's  own  light  illumined  and  foreshowed. 

Page  8j,  note  I.  Most  of  the  paragraph  up  to  this  point 
was  from  the  entry  in  the  Journal  in  1832,  mentioned  in  the 
introduction  to  this  essay,  when  the  thought  of  writing  on 
this  theme  first  came  to  him. 

Page  83,  note  /.  The  checks  in  development,  later  much 
emphasized  by  the  Evolutionists,  seem  to  have  been  early 
apprehended  by  him. 

Page  88,  note  i.  This  saying  of  Ali  is  rendered  in  the  last 
lines  of  the  second  motto  of  «'  Compensation." 


COMPENSATION 

When  in  1865  Mr.  Emerson  met  by  invitation  many  of 
the  ladies  who,  as  girls,  had  attended  the  finishing  school  for 
young  ladies  kept  in  Boston  by  his  brother  William  and  him- 
self, when  hardly  more  than  boys,  he  told  them  that  he  felt 
certain  regrets  with  regard  to  his  teaching.  "  I  was  at  that 
very  time  already  writing  every  night  in  my  chamber  my  first 


396  NOTES 

thoughts  on  morals  and  the  beautiful  laws  of  Compensation 
and  of  individual  genius,  which  to  observe  and  illustrate  have 
given  sweetness  to  my  life.  I  am  afraid  no  hint  of  this  ever 
came  into  the  school,  where  we  clung  to  the  safe  and  cold 
details  of  languages,  geography,  arithmetic  and  chemistry. 
Now  I  believe  that  each  should  serve  the  other  by  his  or  her 
strength,  not  by  their  weakness,  and  that  if  I  could  have  had 
one  hour  of  deep  thought  at  that  time,  I  could  have  engaged 
you  in  thoughts  that  would  have  given  reality,  depth  and  joy 
to  the  school,  and  raised  ali  these  details  to  the  highest  plea- 
sure and  nobleness." 

During  the  days  of  his  ministry,  he  wrote  thus  in  his 
Journal:  — 

CHARDCN  ST.,  JUNE  29,  1831. 

Is  not  the  law  of  Compensation  perfect  ?  It  holds,  as  far  as 
we  can  see,  different  gifts  to  different  individuals,  but  with  a 
mortgage  of  responsibility  on  every  one.  ««  The  gods  sell  all 
things."  —  Well,  old  man,  hast  got  no  farther?  Why,  this 
was  taught  thee  months  and  years  ago.  It  was  writ  on  the 
autumn  leaves  at  Roxbury  in  keep -school  days  —  it  sounded 
in  the  blind  man's  ear  at  Cambridge.1  And  all  the  joy  and 
all  the  sorrow  since  have  added  nothing  to  thy  wooden  book. 
I  can't  help  it.  Heraclitus,  grown  old,  complains  that  all 
resolved  itself  into  identity.  .  .  .  And  I  have  nothing  char- 
actered in  my  brain  that  outlives  this  word  Compensation. 

Three  years  later,  in  1834,  he  wrote  the  verses  entitled 
"  Compensation ' '  which  are  printed  in  the  Poems. 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  essay  "Compensation,"  as  it 
stands,  was  ever  delivered  as  a  lecture.  No  doubt  portions 

i  Referring  to  a  time  when  trouble  with  the  eyes  deprived  him  for  a  tim« 
of  their  uie. 


NOTES  397 

of  it  appeared  in  many  sermons,  and  several  pages  of  it  came 
from  the  lecture  "  Duty  "  in  the  course  on  ««  Human  Life," 
given  in  1838—39. 

In  the  first  motto  the  image  of  *'  The  lonely  Earth  amid 
the  balls ' '  is  one  among  many  instances  of  the  charm  which 
astronomical  phenomena  had  for  Mr.  Emerson.  Evidences  of 
his  reading  treatises  on  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  of  walks  for 
the  purpose  of  gazing  on  them,  occur  frequently  in  journals 
and  writings. 

Page  pj,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson,  having  left  the  pulpit, 
was  striving  the  harder  to  awaken  real  religion  among  those  to 
whom  he  spoke,  to  make  them  feel,  not  only  on  Sundays,  but 
through  the  week,  day  and  night,  a  beautiful,  present  Deity 
working  surely  through  law. 

Page  94,  note  i.  Dr.  Holmes  ekes  out  the  forlorn  view 
of  the  preacher  whose  representations  of  the  Christian's  aims 
and  spirit  had  stirred  Mr.  Emerson  to  write  this  discourse,  by 
the  statement  of  the  unhappy  John  Bunyan  :  — 

A  Christian  man  is  never  long  at  ease; 

When  one  fright 's  gone,  another  doth  him  seize. 

Page  p6,  note  I.    This  is  a  keynote  of  many  of  the  essays. 

"The  soul  is  superior  to  its  knowledge,  wiser  than  its 
works."  —  The  Over-Soul.  "  Heroism  is  an  obedience  to  a 
secret  impulse  of  an  individual's  character." —  Heroism. 

Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free  ; 
He  builded  better  than  he  knew. 

' '  The  Problem, ' '  Poems. 

Page  96,  note  2.    "In  this  and  the  following  chapter." 


398  NOTES 

Compensation  is  not  so  obviously  treated  of  in  •«  Spiritual 
Laws ' '  as  might  be  expected  from  this  expression.  Yet  the 
doctrine  is  there  in  "  A  man  passes  for  what  he  is  worth," 
and  other  statements  of  the  great  laws  of  balance  and  return. 

Page  pf,  note  I.  Every  scientific  fact  and  law  had  its 
charm  for  Mr.  Emerson,  and  ne  sought  its  spiritual  corre- 
spondent. Again  and  again  he  uses  polarity  as  a  parable.  It 
may  be  found  in  the  third  stanza  of  "  The  Sphinx  "  and  in 
"Merlin." 

The  reconciliation  in  the  very  definition  of  Polarity  »  of  the 
apparently  contradictory  notions  held  by  the  early  philosophers 
and  priests,  viz.,  of  the  One,  and  of  the  Duality  that  is  more 
obvious  in  the  world,  delighted  him. 

Page  99,  note  I.  One  day  Mr.  Emerson  saw  the  little 
child  of  a  neighbor,  whom  he  had  always  thought  to  be  a 
sulky  churl,  playing  with  a  pretty  painted  cart.  He  asked 
the  child  who  made  it.  "  My  Papa,"  answered  he,  and  this 
fortified  Mr.  Emerson  in  the  optimism  from  which  he  had 
temporarily  lapsed. 

Page  101,  note  I. 

No  ray  is  dimmed,  no  atom  worn, 
My  oldest  force  is  good  as  new, 
And  the  fresh  rose  on  yonder  thorn 
Gives  back  the  bending  heavens  in  dew. 

"  Song  of  Nature,"  Poems. 


i  <(  Polarity  (Physics).  A  term  used  to  designate  opposite  or  dissimilar 
properties  or  powers  simultaneously  developed  by  a  common  cause  in  oppo- 
Ste  or  contrasted  parts,  as  in  the  extremities  of  a  magnet,  or  in  the  sides  of 
a  polarized  ray  of  light,  situated  respectively  in  the  plane  of  polarization  and 
the  plane  perpendicular  to  it."  —  Worcester* t  Dictionary, 


NOTES  399 

Page  IO2,  note  I.  A  fragment  from  a  lost  p,ay  of  Sopho- 
cles. 

Page  103,  note  I.  In  the  poem  «'  Voluntaries,"  after  the 
national  crime  of  the  long  tolerance  by  our  people  of  African 
slavery  has  been  told,  these  lines  follow:  — 

Destiny  sat  by,  and  said, 
"  Pang  for  pang  your  seed  shall  pay, 
Hide  in  false  peace  your  coward  head, 
I  bring  round  the  harvest  day." 

And  this  Nemesis,  denied  the  name  of  Fate,  because  justice 
is  a  beneficent  force,  appears  as  "  Worship  "  in  the  poem 
which  serves  as  motto  to  the  essay  so  named. 

Page  105,  note  I. 

Naturam  expellas  furca,  tarn  en  usque  recurret, 
Et  mala  perrumpet  furtim  fastidia  victrix. 

Horace,  Epistles,  i.  10. 

Page  106,  note  i.     Confessions  of  St.  Augustine,  Book  I. 

Page  106,  note  2.     From  the  Prometheus  of  ^Eschylus. 

Page  108,  note  I.  The  same  thought  that  is  more  fully 
expressed  in  the  extract  from  the  letter  to  Sterling  given  in  the 
Introduction  to  the  notes  on  the  essays  of  this  volume.  It  also 
appears  in  "The  Problem." 

Page  no,  note  i.  Mr.  Emerson,  after  his  return  from 
Europe  in  1833,  preached  often  at  New  Bedford,  and  later 
gave  a  course  of  lectures  at  Nantucket,  remaining  for  some  time 
on  the  island.  Those  were  the  great  days  of  the  whaling  in- 
dustry of  both  those  towns,  and  Mr.  Emerson  used  to  repeat 
the  anecdotes  of  peril  and  accident  in  hunting  the  monster 
which  had  been  told  him  by  his  hosts. 


400  NOTES 

Page  112,  note  I.  Herodotus  tells  that  Fortune  had  so 
favored  Polycrates,  the  tyrant  of  Samos,  that  his  friend  Ama- 
sis,  king  of  Egypt,  sent  him  word  that  to  ward  off  the  fate 
sure  to  follow  unbroken  prosperity,  he  ought  to  sacrifice  what- 
ever he  valued  most.  Struck  by  this  counsel,  Polycrates  cast 
into  the  sea  his  emerald  ring.  Next  day  it  returned  to  him 
in  the  stomach  of  a  fish  sent  as  a  present.  Amasis  at  once 
broke  off  the  alliance,  foreseeing  in  this  event  the  impending 
doom  of  Polycrates.  Revolt  of  his  subjects,  and  civil  and  for- 
eign wars  followed,  and  not  long  after  the  tyrant  was  lured 
out  of  his  domain  by  the  satrap  of  Sardis  and  crucified. 

Page  113,  note  I.  This  maxim  was  a  household  word 
with  Mr.  Emerson.  He  was  loath  to  place  himself  under 
obligation.  He  wrote:  — 

Wilt  thou  seal  up  the  avenues  of  ill  ? 
Pay  every  debt  as  if  God  wrote  the  bill. 

See  also  in  the  Poems,  the  "  Translation  from  Ibn  Jemin." 

Page  njt  note  I.  These  thoughts  find  expression  in  the 
arguments  used  by  educators  in  the  last  few  years  to  show  the 
mental  and  moral  advantage  of  manual  training  schools. 

Page  II 6,  note  I.  Wordsworth's  Sonnets  to  Liberty, 
*•  September,  1802." 

Page  I  if,  note  i.  This  passage,  expanded  from  an  entry 
made  in  Mr.  Emerson's  Journal  of  Oct.  18,  1832,  was  dis- 
tinctly personal  in  its  origin,  and  shows  his  habitual  humility 
and  courage.  It  continues :  "  The  stammering  tongue  and 
awkward  and  formal  manners  which  hinder  your  success  in 
social  circles  keep  you  true  to  the  mark  which  is  your  own  — 
to  that  particular  power  which  God  has  given  you  for  your 
own  and  others'  benefit." 

Page  118,  note  i.     This  and  the  next  two  sentences  are 


NOTES  401 

the  entry  made  by  Mr.  Emerson  in  his  Journal,  Sept.  29, 
1838,  two  months  after  he  had  delivered  his  earnest  message 
to  the  young  divines  on  the  eve  of  their  entry  into  the  minis- 
try, and  the  ensuing  disclaimers  and  attacks  on  his  address  had 
been  made  by  professors  and  clergymen,  vigorously  answered 
by  Mr.  George  Ripley,  Mr.  Brownson,  Professor  Parsons, 
and  Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke. 
Page  Zip,  note  I. 

If  the  Law  should  thee  forget, 
More  enamoured  serve  it  yet ; 
Though  it  hate  thee,  suffer  long  ; 
Put  the  Spirit  in  the  wrong. 

"The  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  1 2O,  note  I.  This  was  well  said  in  Boston,  where, 
within  a  few  years,  Mr.  Garrison,  for  attempting  to  address 
an  anti-slavery  meeting,  had  been  hustled  up  State  Street 
with  a  rope  around  his  body,  by  the  solid  men  of  business 
and  of  the  professions  ;  and  the  mayor,  to  save  his  life,  had 
him  committed  to  the  jail  as  a  "  disturber  of  the  peace."  His 
statue  stands  now  at  the  head  of  the  handsomest  avenue  in 
Boston. 

Page  121,  note  I.  The  translation  of  "  Being  "  in  the 
next  word  into  its  pleasing  Latin  form,  and  immediately  mak- 
ing it  the  same  as  God,  is  a  striking  and  condensed  statement 
of  the  creed  Each  in  All,  the  Universal  Mind. 

Page  123,  note  I,  This  passage,  as  written  in  the  Journal, 
March  19,  1839,  is  perhaps  more  fresh  and  vigorous:  — 

"  Such  is  my  confidence  in  the  compensations  of  nature, 
that  I  no  longer  wish  to  find  silver  dollars  in  the  road,  nor  to 
have  the  best  of  the  bargain  in  my  dealings  with  people,  nor 
tnat  my  property  should  be  increased,  knowing  that  all  ?  l 


402  NOTES 

gains  are  apparent  and  not  real  ;  for  they  pay  their  sure  tax. 
But  the  perception  that  it  is  not  desirable  to  find  the  dollar  I 
enjoy  without  any  alloy.  This  is  an  abiding  good  :  this  is  so 
much  accession  of  Godhead." 

The  description  of  the  growth  and  liberation  of  the  ideal 
man,  which  follows,  written  forty  years  before  Mr.  Emer- 
son's death,  is  strangely  autobiographical. 

Page  125,  note  I.  Compare  the  last  stanza  of  "  Give  All 
to  Love,"  Poems. 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS 

This  essay  does  not  appear  to  have  been  given  in  its  present 
form  as  a  lecture;  it  may  have  been  so  used  in  Concord  or 
some  neighboring  town  just  before  the  Essays  were  pub- 
lished, but  was  not  in  the  Boston  courses.  Certain  passages 
of  the  essay,  however,  are  found  in  the  lectures  "  Religion" 
and  "  Manners"  in  the  course  on  "The  Philosophy  of  His- 
tory "  (1836—37),  in  "Being  and  Seeming"  in  the  course 
on  "Human  Culture"  (1837-38),  and  in  "School"  and 
"Duty"  in  the  course  on  "Human  Life"  (1838-39). 

There  was  no  motto  to  "  Spiritual  Laws  "  in  the  first  edi- 
tion. 

The  verses  that  he  placed  before  the  new  edition  in  1 847 
show  the  fear  which  he  felt,  especially  at  that  period,  of  weak- 
ening the  poetic  thought  by  what,  in  the  letter  to  Sterling 
which  has  been  already  quoted,  he  calls  "meddling  ambi- 
tiously." Here,  in  twelve  strong  lines  presenting  the  great 
Laws  of  the  Universal  Mind,  Self-Reliance,  Compensation, 
and  Good  out  of  Evil,  he  followed  the  counsel  to  the  bard 
mat  he  puts  in  the  lips  of  Merlin  in  his  poem:  — 


NOTES  403 

Great  is  the  art, 

Great  be  the  manners  of  the  bard. 

He  shall  not  his  brain  encumber 

With  the  coil  of  rhythm  and  number; 

But,  leaving  rule  and  pale  forethought, 

He  shall  aye  climb 

For  his  rhyme. 

««  Pass  in,  pass  in,"  the  angels  say, 

"In  to  the  upper  doors, 

Nor  count  compartments  of  the  floors. 

But  mount  to  paradise 

By  the  stairway  of  surprise.'* 

Page  rji,  note  I.  In  the  year  of  the  publication  of  this 
essay,  his  honored  friend,  the  Rev.  Doctor  Ripley,  the  min- 
ister of  Concord  for  more  than  half  a  century,  died.  He  had 
married  the  widow  of  William  Emerson,  his  predecessor,  a 
chaplain  in  the  army  at  T iconderoga.  Dr.  Ripley  had  been 
a  true  friend  to  his  wife's  grandchildren.  Mr.  Emerson  tells 
in  his  Journal  of  his  visit  to  the  Old  Manse  at  the  time  of 
his  death  ;•  — 

"  His  body  is  a  handsome  and  noble  spectacle.  My  mother 
was  moved  just  now  to  call  it  '  the  beauty  of  the  dead.'  He 
looks  like  a  sachem  fallen  in  the  forest,  or  rather  « like  a  war- 
rior taking  his  rest  with  his  martial  cloak  around  him.'  I  car- 
ried Waldo  to  see  him  and  he  testified  neither  repulsion  nor 
surprise,  but  only  the  quietest  curiosity.  He  was  ninety  years 
old.  .  .  .  Yet  this  face  has  the  tension  and  resolution  of 
vigorous  manhood.  ...  A  man  is  but  a  little  thing  in  the 
midst  of  these  great  objects  of  nature,  ...  yet  a  man  by 
moral  quality  may  abolish  all  thoughts  of  magnitude,  and  in  his 
manners  equal  the  majesty  of  the  world." 


*«04  NOTES 

Page  131,  note  2.  This  passage  calls  to  mind  the  "  morn- 
ing thought,"  the  "  Matutina  Cognitio  "  of  St.  Augustine. 
See  Notes  to  Nature  ("  Prospects  "). 

PaSe  I32*  note  !•  He  would  have  liked  the  answer  which 
William  Morris  gave  to  one  who  asked  if  he  were  subject  to  the 
extreme  despondency  which  so  often  accompanies  the  highly 
poetic  temperament.  "I  dare  say  I  am,"  said  he,  "but  I  've 
never  had  the  time  to  think  of  it,  so  I  really  can't  say." 

PaSe  *32>  note  2-  From  Wordsworth's  Sonnet  XII.  in 
Poems  dedicated  to  National  Independence,  part  ii. 

Page  133,  note  I.  The  relative  value  of  his  imposed  and 
his  chosen  studies  came  up  often  in  Mr.  Emerson's  mind  to 
the  advantage  of  the  latter.  Always  an  eager  and  delighted 
reader  of  the  books  (or  a  few  passages  in  books)  that  he  knew 
as  "written  for  him,"  he  found  little  in  the  text-books  at 
school  or  college,  besides  the  classics,  that  interested  him.  In 
"  Heroism  "  he  tells  of  the  power  for  good  of  a  romance 
"  over  a  boy  who  grasps  the  forbidden  book  under  the  bench 
at  school;  our  delight  in  the  hero  is  the  main  fact  to  our  pur- 
pose. ...  If  we  dilate  in  beholding  the  Greek  energy,  the 
Roman  pride,  it  is  that  we  are  already  domesticating  the  same 
sentiment." 

Page  134,  note  I.  Purified  mankind  as  transmitters  of 
divine  thought  are  described  in  the  poetical  note-books  as  — 

Pipes  through  which  the  breath  of  God  doth  blow 
A  universal  music. 

Page  IJS>  note  i>  The  image  of  Mother  Nature  calming 
her  flustered  little  son  is  repeated,  sail  with  a  little  humor,  in 
the  poem  "  Experience,"  which  serves  as  motto  to  the  essay 
of  that  name  in  Essays,  Second  Series. 

Page  ijS,  note  I.     Pyrrho  of  Elis  (360-270  B.  c.),  • 


NOTES  405 

Greek  painter,  poet  and  philosopher,  who  joined  the  expedi- 
tion of  Alexander  to  conquer  the  East,  but  returned  to  Elis 
and  became  a  priest.  '  *  He  held  that  the  only  condition  wor- 
thy of  a  philosopher  was  that  of  suspended  judgment.  Virtu- 
ous imperturbability  was  the  highest  aim  of  life,  but  truth  was 
unattainable. ' ' —  Appleton's  Encyclopedia. 

Page  140,  note  i.  During  his  stay  in  New  Bedford,  in 
1834,  while  officiating  for  his  friend  the  Rev.  Dr.  Dewey, 
Mr.  Emerson  heard  the  doctrine  of  Obedience  as  adopted  by 
the  Friends,  —  renunciation  of  all  will,  and  awaiting  the 
divine  motion  in  the  breast. 

Journal.  "The  sublime  religion  of  Miss  Rotch  yesterday. 
She  was  very  much  disciplined,  she  said,  in  the  years  of 
Quaker  dissensions,  and  driven  inward,  drawn  home  to  find 
an  anchor,  until  she  learned  to  have  no  choice,  to  acquiesce 
without  understanding  the  reason  when  she  found  an  obstruc- 
tion to  any  particular  course  of  acting.  She  objected  to  having 
this  spiritual  direction  called  an  impression,  or  an  intimation, 
or  *''  oracle.  It  was  none  of  them.  It  was  so  simple  it  could 
han'  >e  spoken  of." 

This  statement  of  faith  interested  him,  but  he  had  already 
learned  to  yield  himself  to  the  divine  stream  sweeping  away 
the  distinctions  of  forms. 

Page  141,  note  i.  The  boast  of  Glendower  to  Hotspur, 
Henry  IP.,  Part  I.,  Act  III.,  Scene  i. 

Page  142,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  thus  celebrates  the  dig- 
nity of  the  farmer's  work:  — 

He  planted  where  the  deluge  p/oughed, 
His  hired  hands  were  wind  and  cloud; 
His  eye  detects  the  Gods  concealed 
In  the  hummocks  of  the  field. 

«« Fragments,"  Poems,  Appendix. 


406  NOTES 

Page  143,  note  I.  This  image  was  suggested  by  a  passage 
in  Scott's  Old  Mortality  which  Mr.  Emerson  often  repeated 
with  something  of  the  pleasure  it  had  given  him  in  his  boyhood. 
The  fierce  fanatic,  Balfour  of  Burley,  speaks  of  the  possibility 
of  influencing  some  opponents  of  the  Covenanters  by  pros- 
pects of  worldly  gain,  but  thus  tells  in  his  wrath  of  the  incor- 
ruptibility of  the  young  nob\eman  who  opposes  them:  "  But 
Lord  Evandale  is  a  malignant  of  heart  like  flint  and  brow  like 
adamant;  the  goods  of  this  world  fall  on  him  like  the  leaves 
on  the  frost-bound  earth,  and  unmoved  he  will  see  them 
whirled  off  by  the  first  wind.  The  heathen  virtues  of  such  as 
he  are  more  dangerous  to  us  than  the  sordid  cupidity  of  those 
who  .  .  .  may  be  compelled  to  work  in  the  vineyard,  were 
it  but  to  earn  the  wages  of  sin. ' ' 

Page  147,  note  i. 

Earth  fills  her  lap  with  pleasures  of  her  own. 
Wordsworth,  Intimations  of  Immortality. 

Page  148,  note  I.  In  the  essay  "  Demonology,"  in  Lec- 
tures and  Biographical  Sketches,  dreams  are  treated  of.  See 
also  the  quatrain  '*  Memory  "  in  the  Poems. 

Page  151,  note  I.  When  somewhat  importunately  urged 
to  be  presented  to  a  person  for  whom  he  felt  no  affinity,  Mr. 
Emerson  said,  ««  Whom  God  hath  put  asunder,  let  no  man 
put  together." 

Page  ifj,  note  z.  It  was  the  sentence  more  than  the 
paragraph  in  the  essay  that  he  valued,  hence  he  strove  to  make 
every  syllable  tell. 

Page  156,  note  I.  This  was  the  remark  of  his  honored 
friend,  Samuel  Hoar,  Esq.  See  the  notice  of  him  in  Lectures 
and  Biographical  Sketches,  and  the  sonnet  by  Mr.  F.  B. 
Sanborn  prefixed  to  it.  Also  Mr.  Emerson's  quatrain  ««& 
H."  in  Poems. 


NOTES  407 

Page  164,  note  I. 

Jack  was  embarrassed,  —  never  hero  more, 
And,  as  he  knew  not  what  to  say,  he  swore. 

Byron's  Lland,  Canto  III.,  5. 
It  was,  however,  Jack  Skyscrape  and  not  Ben  Bunting. 

Page  l6j,  note  I.  Another  name  for  the  British  queen 
Boadicea.  Mr.  Emerson  valued  certain  passages  in  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher's  «'  Tragedy  of  Bonduca,"  especially  the  speeches 
of  Caratach  in  the  first  scene. 

Page  166,  note  I.  Dr.  Holmes  in  his  Life  of  Emerson 
quotes  the  passage,  and  thus  comments:  "  This  is  not  any  the 
worse  for  being  the  flowering  out  of  a  poetical  bud  of  George 
Herbert's."  He  alludes  to  "The  Elixer,"  beginning  — 

Teach  me,  my  God  and  King, 
In  all  things  thee  to  see ; 

and  especially  to  the  verse  — 

A  servant  with  this  clause 

Makes  drudgerie  divine  ; 

Who  sweeps  a  room  as  for  thy  laws, 

Makes  that  and  th'  action  fine. 

LOVE 

This  essay  is  almost  identical  with  the  fourth  lecture  in  the 
course  on  "Human  Life,"  given  in  Boston  by  Mr.  Emerson 
in  the  winter  of  1838-39.  He  made  a  few  verbal  changes 
and  unimportant  omissions  in  the  later  editions  from  the  earlier 
form.  Because  the  love  that  Emerson  treats  of  here  is  not 
considered  from  the  point  of  view  of  young  lovers  alone,  but  as 
fife-long,  and  unfolding  to  "a  love  which  knows  not  sex,  nor 


408  NOTES 

person,  nor  partiality,  but  which  seeks  virtue  and  wisdom  every, 
where,"  his  poem  "  Eros  "  might  have  served  for  its  motto: — < 

The  sense  of  the  world  is  short,  — 

Long  and  various  the  report,  — 
To  love  and  be  beloved  ;  v. 

Men  and  gods  have  not  outlearned  it; 

And,  how  oft  soe'er  they  've  turned  it, 

Not  to  be  improved. 

In  a  letter  written  to  a  friend  in  the  year  of  the  publication 
of  this  essay,  this  passage  occurs  :  — 

"  The  same  Goodness  in  which  we  believe,  or  rather  which 
alway  believes  on  itself,  as  soon  as  we  cease  to  consider  duties 
and  consider  persons,  becomes  Love,  imperious  Love,  that 
great  Prophet  and  Poet,  that  Comforter,  that  Omnipotency 
in  the  heart.  Its  eye  falls  on  some  mortal  form,  but  it  rests 
not  a  moment  there  ;  but,  as  every  leaf  represents  to  us  all 
vegetable  nature,  so  Love  looks  through  that  spotted,  blighted 
form  to  the  vast  spiritual  element  of  which  it  was  created  and 
which  it  represents.  We  demand  of  those  we  love  that  they 
shall  be  excellent  in  countenance,  in  speech,  in  behavior,  in 
power,  in  will.  They  are  not  so  ;  we  are  grieved,  but  we 
were  in  the  right  to  ask  it.  If  they  do  not  share  the  Deity 
that  dictated  to  our  thought  this  immense  wish,  they  will 
quickly  pass  away,  but  the  demand  will  not  die,  but  will  go 
on  accumulating  as  the  supply  accumulates,  and  the  virtues  of 
the  soul  in  the  remotest  ages  will  only  begin  to  fulfil  the  first 
•raving  of  our  poor  heart." 

Page  167,  note  I.  In  a  note-book  Mr.  Emerson  gives 
the  quotation  from  the  Koran  thus  :  — 

««I  was  as  a  treasure  concealed:  then  I  loved  that  I  might 
be  known." 


NOTES  409 

And  below  it  his  own  rendering  — 
I  was  as  a  gem  concealed; 
I  burned  with  love  and  was  revealed. 

And  then  the  second  line  altered  thus  :  — 
Me  my  burning  love  revealed. 

Page  171,  note  I.  Although  Mr.  Emerson  did  not  allow 
his  mind  to  revert,  looking  ever  to  the  brightness  before,  yet 
when,  of  a  sudden,  a  memory  came  over  him  of  his  young 
wife,  his  brothers,  his  mother,  gone  from  this  life,  he  would, 
for  the  moment,  start  and  moan,  wrung  by  "  infinite  com- 
punctions," due  to  his  own  tenderness  and  humble  rating  of 
himself,  not  thinking  how  they  had  prized  him. 

Page  172,  note  I.  Once  a  young  school-teacher  was 
invited  to  tea  at  his  house.  He  was,  as  ever,  courteous  and 
kind,  but  after  she  had  gone,  he  mentioned  that,  perhaps  a 
dozen  years  before,  he  had  found  on  the  way  to  Walden  a 
childish  love-letter,  open  and  weather-stained,  addressed  to 
her,  and,  though  he  did  not  know  the  schoolgirl,  he  had  re- 
membered her  name  and  the  little  romance. 

Page  775,  note  I.  From  the  Epithalamium  of  John 
Donne. 

Page  If6,  note  I.  This  was  a  favorite  line  of  Mr.  Em- 
erson' s,  perhaps  written  by  one  of  his  friends,  but  I  have  never 
been  able  to  find  whence  it  came. 

Page  iff,  note  i.    From  A  Nice  Valour,  by  John  Fletcher, 

HI.,  3- 

Page  777,  note  2. 

He  looketh  seldom  in  their  face, 
His  eyes  explore  the  ground,  — 
The  green  grass  is  a  looking-glass 
Whereon  theii  traits  are  found. 

"Manners,"  Poems. 


410  NOTES 

Page  179,  note  I.  *'  The  end  of  all  liberal  training  should 
be  the  We  of  beauty  "  —  Socrates  having  previously  de- 
scribed proper  education  as  a  training  in  virtue.  (Plato's  Re- 
public, Book  III.) 

Page  281,  note  z.  This  passage  recalls  the  one  from  Plu- 
tarch, already  quoted,  to  the  effect  that  the  Sun  is  the  cause 
why  all  men  are  ignorant  of  Apollo,  by  sense  withdrawing 
the  mind  from  that  which  is  to  that  which  seems. 

Professor  Wright,  of  Harvard  University,  says  of  this  para- 
graph of  Mr.  Emerson's,  "  It  is  distinctly  Platonic,  and 
seems  to  be  an  echo  of  the  Phtedrus,  where  the  entombment 
of  the  soul  is  referred  to,  and  the  necessity  that  it  must  see 
true  being  before  it  can  take  human  form  is  stated.  The 
thought  that  it  is  «  stupefied  by  the  light  of  the  natural  sun  and 
unable  to  see  any  other  object  but  those  of  this  world,  which 
are  but  shadows  of  real  things, '  is  perhaps  supported  by  the 
opening  of  the  seventh  book  of  the  Republic,  where  appears 
the  famous  'image  of  the  cave.'  " 

Page  182,  note  I.  I  think  that  the  word  "  base"  is  used  in 
its  primary  sense,  to  signify  the  humble  foundation  on  the 
earth. 

Thou  shalt  not  scale  Love's  height  divine 
By  burrowing  at  its  earthly  base  ; 
Nor  call  the  priceless  treasure  thine 
Who  car'st  but  to  affront  the  case. 
"The  Angel  in  the  House,"  Coventry  Patmore. 

Page  184,  note  I.  From  Donne's  "  Elegy  on  Mistress 
Drury." 

Page  183,  note  I.  Compare  Emerson' s  early  poem, « « Thine 
Eyes  Still  Shined." 

Page  1 86,  note  i.    From  Abraham  Cowley's  st  Resolved 


NOTES  411 

ID  be  Beloved,"  in  The  Mistress;  or,  Several  Copies  of  Lovt 
Letters. 


FRIENDSHIP 

This  essay  was  not  given  as  a  lecture  under  this  title  and 
as  a  whole  in  any  of  the  Boston  courses,  although  very  prob- 
ably it  served  in  that  capacity  in  some  of  the  Lyceums.  As  is 
shown  in  Mr.  Cabot's  Memoir  (Appendix  F),  portions  of 
it  were  taken  from  the  lecture  on  "Society,"  in  the  course 
on  "The  Philosophy  of  History"  (1836-37),  and  others 
from  "The  Heart"  in  the  course  on  "  Human  Culture," 
given  in  Boston  the  following  year.  Several  paragraphs  come 
from  "Private  Life,"  in  the  course  on  "The  Present  Age" 
(1839-40). 

Friendship,  as  Mr.    Emerson  said  in  the  essay,  seemed 
"too  good  to  be  believed,"  and  he  earnestly  desired  it,  yet 
so  high  was  his  standard  that  he  felt  that  he  had  not  his  share 
of  this  blessing  and  cast  the  blame  on  himself. 
Friends  to  me  are  frozen  wine  ; 
I  wait  the  sun  on  them  should  shine. 

He  had  many,  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  word,  and  their  num- 
ber increased  with  the  years ;  many  also  unknown  to  him  ; 
but  he  had  few  close  friends  in  all  his  life.  This  lack  he  re- 
cognized as  temperamental  and  deplored.  But  here  too  was 
"  good  out  of  evil  "  for  him.  At  a  little  distance  he  could 
take  the  greatest  pleasure  in  his  friends,  could  see  them  in 
their  proper  atmosphere.  The  treatment  that  he  asked  for 
himself  he  gave  in  some  tempered  degree  to  them  :  — 

You  shall  not  love  me  for  what  daily  spends  ; 
You  shall  not  know  me  in  the  crowded  street, 


412  NOTES 

Where  I,  as  others,  follow  petty  ends  ; 
Nor  when  in  fair  saloons  we  chance  to  meet. 
Nor  when  I  'm  jaded,  sick,  anxious  or  mean. 
But  love  me  then  and  only,  when  you  know 
Me  for  the  channel  of  the  rivers  of  God 
From  deep,  ideal,  fontal  heavens  that  flow. 

In  practice  he  was  loyal  and  serviceable  to  his  friends,  ye( 
preferred  to  see  them  sparingly,  to  find  in  them  what  thej 
were  meant  to  be,  and  "  take  each  by  his  best  handle." 

In  writing  to  one  of  his  nearest  friends  through  life,  a  gen- 
tleman of  great  charm  and  culture,  Mr.  Emerson  said,  prob- 
ably about  the  new  essay  on  ««  Love"  or  on  «« Friendship," 
a  year  before  its  publication  :  — 

"I  send  you  ...  [a  paper]  of  last  winter's  composi- 
tion, a  piece  which  I  wrote  with  good  heart,  and  trust  you 
may  find  some  sparks  still  alive  in  the  cinders.  The  argu- 
ment were  fitter  for  rhyme,  but  that  comes  only  by  the  special 
favor  of  the  skies.  .  .  .  Certainly  we  discover  our  friends  by 
the  very  highest  tokens,  and  these  not  describable,  often  not 
even  intelligible,  but  not  the  less  sure  to  that  augury  which  is 
within  the  intellect,  and  therefore  higher.  This  is  to  me  the 
most  attractive  of  all  topics,  and,  I  doubt  not,  whenever  I  get 
your  full  confession  of  faith,  we  shall  be  at  one  on  the  matter. 
Because  the  subject  is  so  high  and  sacred,  we  cannot  walk 
straight  up  to  it ;  we  must  saunter  if  we  would  find  the  secret. 
Nature's  roads  are  not  turnpikes,  but  circles,  and  the  instincts 
are  the  only  sure  guides."  ' 

While  lecturing  in  Philadelphia,  in  January,  1 843,  he  wrote 
to  the  same  friend  as  follows  :  — 

"  I  must  thank  the  Quaker  City,  however,  for  a  new  con- 
viction, that  this  whim  called  friendship  was  the  brightest 

i  Letters  from  Ralph  Waldo  Emerton  to  a  Friend.  Houghton,  Mifflia 
&  Co.,  1899. 


NOTES  413 

thought  in  what  Eden  or  Olympus  it  first  occurred.  I  think 
the  two  first  friends  must  have  been  travellers.  —  I  doubt  you 
think  my  practice  of  the  finest  art  to  be  bad  enough,  but 
friendship  does  not  ever  seem  to  me  quite  real  in  the  world, 
but  always  prophetic ;  and  if  I  wrote  on  the  Immortality  of 
the  Soul,  this  would  be  my  first  topic.  Yet  is  nothing  more 
right  than  that  men  should  think  to  address  each  other  with 
truth  and  the  highest  poetry  «t  certain  moments,  far  as  their 
ordinary  intercourse  is  therefrom  and  buried  in  trifles.  I  will 
try  if  a  man  is  a  man.  I  will  know  if  he  feels  that  star  as  I 
feel  it :  among  trees,  does  he  know  them  and  they  him  ?  Is 
he  at  the  same  time  both  flowing  and  fixed  ?  Does  he  feel 
that  Nature  proceeds  from  him,  yet  can  he  carry  himself  as  if 
he  were  the  meanest  particle  ?  All  and  nothing  ?  These  things 
I  would  know  of  him,  yet  without  catechism  :  he  shall  tell 
me  them  in  all  manner  of  unexpected  ways,  in  his  behavior 
and  in  his  repose." 

Page 191,  note  i.    Journal,  1838.    "At  church  I  saw  that 

beautiful  child and  my  fine,  natural,   manly  neighbor, 

who  bore  the  bread  and  wine  to  the  communicants  with  so 
clear  an  eye  and  excellent  face  and  manners. 

"The  softness  and  peace,  the  benignant  humanity  that  hov- 
ers over  our  assembly  when  it  sits  down  at  the  morning  serviol 
In  church." 

Page  192,  note  I. 

The  tongue  is  prone  to  lose  the  way  ; 
Not  so  the  pen,  for  in  a  letter 
We  have  not  better  things  to  say, 
But  surely  say  them  better. 

"  Fragments  on  Life,"  Potms, 


4H  NOTES 

Page  1 94,  note  7.  The  high  sidewalk  under  vhe  warn 
sandy  southern  slope  of  hills  opposite  Mr.  Emerson's  house, 
on  the  "  Great  Road  "  to  Boston,  has  a  different  climate  from 
the  rest  of  Concord,  and  so  used  to  be  a  favorite  walk  in  the 
cold  half  of  the  year.  Mr.  Alcott  and  Mr.  Hawthorne  lived 
on  this  road,  and  it  was  the  venerable  Squire  Hoar's  favorite 
walk.  Not  only  these  friends,  but  the  farmers  and  laborers, 
the  schoolgirls  and  the  schoolboys  would  have  been  surprised 
if  they  had  known  with  what  respectful  or  admiring  eyes 
Mr.  Emerson  looked  on  them  from  his  study  windows,  and 
had  heard  his  comments  on  them. 

Page  195,  note  i.     Milton,  Comus. 

Page  196,  note  I.  Compare  with  this  paragraph  "  The 
Park ' '  in  the  Poems. 

Page  197,  note  i.  Journal,  1833.  "My  entire  success, 
«uch  as  it  is,  is  composed  wholly  of  particular  failures." 

Page  197,  note  2. 

When  half-gods  go 
The  gods  arrive. 

"  Give  All  to  Love,"  Poems. 
Page  199,  note  i. 

If  love  his  moment  overstay, 
Hatred's  swift  repulsions  play. 

«  The  Visit,"  Poems. 

Page  2OO,  note  I.    Shakspeare,  Sonnet  xxv. 

Page  202,  note  I.  In  his  first  letter  to  John  Sterling, 
May  29,  1840,  a  few  months  before  the  publication  of  this 
essay,  Mr.  Emerson  wrote  :  "I  am  a  worshipper  of  Friend- 
ship, and  cannot  find  any  other  good  equal  to  it.  As  soon  ai 
any  man  pronounces  the  words  which  approve  him  fit  for  that 
great  office,  I  make  no  haste  :  he  is  holy;  let  me  be  holy  also; 


NOTES  415 

our  relations  are  eternal;  why  should  we  count  days  and 
weeks  ?  I  had  this  feeling  in  reading  your  paper  on  Carlyle, 
in  which  I  admired  the  rare  behavior,  with  far  less  heed  the 
things  said;  these  were  opinions,  but  the  tone  was  the  man."1 

Page  203,  note  i.  The  allusion  is  to  Jones  Very,  of 
Salem,  a  mystic  and  ascetic,  of  whom  an  interesting  account 
it  given  in  Mr.  Cabot's  Memoir  of  Emerson,  vol.  i.,  chapter 
x.,  and  a  fuller  one  by  Mr.  W.  P.  Andrews,  in  his  introduc- 
tion to  Essays  and  Poems  by  Jones  Very.  In  a  letter  to  Miss 
Margaret  Fuller,  written  in  November,  1838,  Mr.  Emerson 
wrote:  "  Very  has  been  here  lately  and  stayed  a  few  days,  con- 
founding us  all  with  the  question  whether  he  was  insane.  At 
first  sight  and  speech  you  would  certainly  pronounce  him  so. 
Talk  with  him  a  few  hours,  and  you  will  think  all  insane  but 
he.  Monomania  or  monosania,  he  is  a  very  remarkable  per- 
aon;  and  though  his  mind  is  not  in  a  natural,  and  probably 
not  in  a  permanent  state,  he  is  a  treasure  of  a  companion,  and 
I  had  with  him  most  memorable  conversations." 

He  records  that  Very  said  to  him  :  "  I  always  felt,  when 
I  heard  you  read  or  speak  your  writings,  that  you  saw  the 
truth  better  than  others,  yet  I  felt  that  your  spirit  was  not  quite 
right.  It  was  as  if  a  vein  of  colder  air  blew  across  me." 

Page  2O4t  note  I,  This  quotation  is  from  Montaigne, 
Book  I.,  chapter  xxxix.,  "A  Consideration  upon  Cicero." 

Page  207,  note  I.  In  converse  with  Nature  he  felt  that 
tne  same  rule  held.  "  Nature  says  to  man,  '  One  to  one,  my 
dear.'  " —  Journal. 

Page  208,  note  I.  Compare  with  this  paragraph  his  poem 
«•  £tienne  de  la  Boece." 

Page  209,  note  I.  From  the  recent  notice  of  the  death 
of  a  business  man  of  integrity  in  Chicago,  who  was  also  a  lover 

i  Correipondtncc  of  Sterling  and  Emerton. 


416  NOTES 

of  good  books  and  a  loyal  friend  of  Mr.  Emerson,  I  copy  thk 
anecdote  showing  Mr.  Emerson's  conscience,  and  that  of  his 
friend  also,  in  the  matter  of  rashly  endeavoring  to  come  near 
to  those  whom  we  admire  by  letters  of  introduction.  "  Mr. 

wanted  to  know  Mr.  Longfellow  and  desired  Mr. 

Emerson  to  introduce  him.  The  cautious  philosopher  replied 
that  he  would  do  so  if  his  young  friend  could  truthfully  say  that 
he  stood  in  such  relation  to  the  genius  of  the  poet  as  made  it 
fitting.  This  the  youth  decided  that  he  could  not  do.  There 
seems  to  me  something  charming  in  Mr.  Emerson's  reliance 
on  the  integral  delicacy  of  the  boy  to  guard  him  against  a  pos- 
sible false  position." 

Page  212,  note  I.  Here  followed  in  the  first  edition  these 
two  sentences  :  "  The  only  money  of  God  is  God.  He 
pays  never  with  anything  less  or  anything  else." 

Page  213,  note  I.    See  the  poem  "  Rubies." 

Page  214,  note  I.  This  paragraph  closes  in  the  first  edi- 
tion with  the  sentence,  "It  is  the  property  of  the  divine  to 
be  reproductive." 

Page  215,  note  I.  Carrying  out  the  comparison  of  friends 
and  books  in  the  chapter  "Nominalist  and  Realist"  in  the 
second  series  of  Essays,  Mr.  Emerson  writes:  "  I  find  most 
pleasure  in  reading  a  book  in  a  manner  least  flattering  to  the 
author.  ...  I  read  for  the  lustres,  as  if  one  should  use  a 
fine  picture  in  a  chromatic  experiment  for  its  rich  colors." 

Page  216,  note  I.  "  The  astronomers  are  very  eager  to 
know  whether  the  moon  has  an  atmosphere  ;  I  am  only  con- 
cerned that  every  man  have  one.  I  observe  however  that  it 
takes  two  to  make  an  atmosphere.  I  am  acquainted  with  per. 
sons  who  go  attended  with  this  ambient  cloud." — "Aristo- 
cracy," Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches. 

Page  21  ft   note  i.    This  trait  may  be  found  in  all  Mr. 


NOTES  417 

Emerson's  letters  to  his  friends,  especially  those  to  Carlyle, 
wherein  all  his  friend's  petulances  and  faults  are  ignored. 


PRUDENCE 

The  greater  part  of  this  essay  was  probably  given  as  a  lec- 
ture in  Boston,  the  seventh  in  the  course  on  "  Human  Cul- 
ture" in  the  winter  of  1837-38.  Mr.  Emerson  was  by 
education  and  temperament  prudent,  but  in  no  petty  way. 
Knowing  his  want  of  practical  faculty,  and  the  idea  of  debt  or 
of  dependence  on  others  being  abhorrent  to  him,  he  strove  to 
practise  honorable  economies.  But  every  humblest  fact  was 
valuable  to  him  as  a  symbol,  and  he  loved  to  detect  the  work- 
ings of  the  great  laws  in  small  things.  Recalling  in  one  of 
his  note-books  two  or  three  of  his  experiences  as  a  young 
Boston  minister,  he  wrote,  «'  One  day  when  I  read  a  ser- 
mon of  which  the  text  might  have  been  '  Don't  mind 
trifles,'  old  William  Little  said  to  me  at  the  door  that,  'if 
he  were  to  make  the  sermon,  he  should  have  taken  the  other 
side.'  " 

In  the  chapter  on  "  Swedenborg  "  in  Representative  Men, 
he  said,  "  Malpighi,  following  the  high  doctrines  of  Hippo- 
crates, Leucippus  and  Lucretius,  had  given  emphasis  to  the 
dogma  that  nature  works  in  leasts,  —  « tota  in  minimis  existat 
natura.'  "  So  accepting  Plato's  word  that  the  macrocosm 
may  be  known  by  the  microcosm,  in  spite  of  poetic  traditions, 
yet,  as  a  poet,  and  still  young,  he  found  pleasure  in  a 

Theme  no  poet  gladly  sung, 
Fair  to  old  and  foul  to  young, — - 

It  he  calls  it  in  the  motto  which  he  wrote  for  the  second  edt 


418  NOTES 

tion.  An  example  of  the  fitness  and  seeming  originality  of  his 
English,  by  steadily  holding  its  classic  foundations  in  mind, 
occurs  in  the  diminutive  in  the  fourth  line,  where  the  little 
arts  of  which  great  arts  are  built  find  due  recognition. 

Page  221,  note  I.  The  other  Garden  is  described  in  his 
poem  of  that  name.  Although  in  the  early  years  of  his  house- 
keeping, for  economy's  sake  and  health's,  he  hoed  and  weeded, 
he  soon  found  that  a  higher  prudence  required  his  spending 
the  time  hitherto  given  to  the  home  garden  in  that  by  Wai- 
den's  shores,  whence  he  brought  home  better  and  more 
lasting  fruit. 

Page  221,  note  2.  This  is  a  good  illustiarion  of  the  plea- 
sure Mr.  Emerson  took  in  ' '  Aspects  "  ;  in  coming  to  firm, 
homely  ground  after  a  high  flight. 

Page  222,  note  f.  The  influence  of  his  Beading  of  the  old 
philosophers,  and  also  of  Swedenborg,  shows  in  this  para- 
graph. 

Mr.  Emerson  loved  to  look  for  what  his  friend  Whittier 
called  — 

The  unsung  beauty  hid  life's  common  things  below. 

Page  223,  note  I.  "  Nature  is  too  thin  a  screen  ;  the  glory 
of  the  one  breaks  in  everywhere." — -"The  Preacher," 
Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches. 

Page  223,  note  2.  A  less  complimentary  estimate  of  pro- 
verbs than  that  given  in  the  essay  on  "  Compensation."  It 
recalls  Stevenson's  essay  ''Crabbed  Age  and  Youth"  in 
Virginibus  Puerisque,  in  which,  among  other  strictures  on 
cowardly  and  prudential  proverbs,  he  says  that,  according  to 
them,  "  never  to  forget  your  umbrella  through  a  long  life 
would  seem  to  be  a  higher  and  wiser  flight  of  achievement 
than  to  go  smiling  to  the  stake  ;  and  so  long  as  you  are  a  bit 


NOTES  419 

ef  a  coward,  and  inflexible  in  money  matters,  you  fulfil  the 
whole  duty  of  man." 

Page  226,  note  I.  The  necessary  interruptions  of  his  study 
and  writing  that  befell  Mr.  Emerson  as  a  householder  he  bore 
with  philosophy.  He  never  allowed  himself  to  complain  of 
mischances  in  the  house  or  abroad,  unless  later  to  serve  up  his 
misfortune  in  an  amusing  manner.  Of  one  thing  he  was  sure, 
—  that  there  was  some  modest  share  of  benefit  in  it,  and 
that  was  his  business  to  find. 

Page  226,  note  2.  The  austere  benefits  which  the  North 
gives  to  her  children  are  celebrated  in  the  Poems  in  the  lesson 
which  the  hardy  Titmouse  gives  to  the  wanderer  in  the  woods, 
in  "  Voluntaries,"  a  war  poem,  and  in  the  lines  in  "  May- 
Day:"— 

Titan-born,  to  hardy  natures 
Cold  is  genial  and  dear. 
As  Southern  wrath  to  Northern  right 
Is  but  straw  to  anthracite  ; 
As  in  the  day  of  sacrifice, 
When  heroes  piled  the  pyre, 
The  dismal  Massachusetts  ice 
Burned  more  than  others'  fire, 
So  Spring  guards  with  surface  cold 
The  garnered  heat  of  ages  old. 

Of  course  the  constant  consideration  of  the  effect  of  Slavery 
and  Free  Labor  on  our  people  before  the  Civil  War  emphasized 
these  distinctions. 

Page  2 JO,  note  I.  Amidst  the  stream  of  visionaries  flowing 
by  him,  often  without  visible  means  of  support,  it  was  impor- 
tant that  some  one  should  stand  firm,  with  feet  planted  on 
the  ground. 


420  NOTES 

Page  231,  note  /.  Compare  his  poem  "  Limits,"  Poems, 
Appendix. 

Page  232,  note  7.  Mr.  Emerson  could  never  hear  with 
patience  of  the  divorce  of  Morals  from  Intellect.  There  was 
always  abatement  of  his  enjoyment  of  Goethe  because  of  hi» 
shortcomings  in  morals,  and  hence  in  insight. 

Poge  233*  note  !•  1°  scattered  verses  on  "  The  Poet'* 
or  ««  The  Discontented  Poet,"  written  in  the  same  years  with 
these  Essays,  and  only  gathered  after  Mr.  Emerson's  death 
in  the  Appendix  to  the  Poems,  he  describes  these  floods  and 
ebbs  in  the  passage  beginning  — 

Ah!  happy  if  a  sun  or  star 

Could  chain  the  wheel  of  Fortune's  car. 

Page  235,  note  I.  Again  the  ancient  doctrine  of  "The 
Flowing,"  shown  in  the  hurrying  life  of  the  Yankee  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

Page  237,  note  I.  "  In  prceliis  oculi  primi  vincuntur  " 
(Tacitus);  a  quotation  often  used  by  Mr.  Emerson,  but  with- 
out giving  the  source. 

Page  239,  note  7.  "  He  who  taketh  the  sword  shall 
perish  by  the  sword  "  was  a  rule  that  Mr.  Emerson  held  to 
with  regard  to  argument,  whether  as  a  weapon  offensive  or 
defensive.  His  feeling  on  this  subject  is  shown  in  his  second 
letter  to  his  friend,  Rev.  Henry  Ware,  after  the  Divinity 
School  Address,  printed  by  Mr.  Cabot  in  his  Memoir  of  Em 
trson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  689. 

Page  2j<p,  note  2.  By  adhering  to  this  simple  rule  and 
faith  in  "The  Universal  Mind,"  Mr.  Emerson,  as  Dr. 
Holmes  said,  "  could  go  anywhere  and  find  willing  listener! 
•n\ong  those  farthest  in  their  belief  from  the  views  he  held. 
Such  was  his  simplicity  of  speech  and  manner,  such  his  trans- 


NOTES  421 

parent  sincerity,  that  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  quarrel  with 
the  gentle  image-breaker."  Suggesting  George  Herbert's 
teaching  in  his  "  Church  Porch  :  " — 

Scorn  no  man's  love,  though  of  a  mean  degree; 

(Love  is  a  present  for  a  mightie  king.) 

Much  lesse  make  any  one  thine  enemie. 

As  gunnes  destroy,  so  may  a  little  sling. 

HEROISM 

This  essay  is  probably  the  lecture  of  that  name  essentially 
as  delivered  in  the  course  on  «« Human  Culture  "  in  Boston, 
in  the  winter  of  1837-38. 

The  homage  which  Mr.  Emerson  felt  bound  to  render  to 
the  lowly  virtues  of  Prudence,  after  dealing  with  "  the  fine 
lyric  words  of  Love  and  Friendship,"  made  an  interesting 
contrast  for  his  hearers,  the  more  effective  by  his  leading  them 
up  to  the  heights  of  Heroism  in  the  succeeding  lecture. 

In  a  lecture  called  "  The  Present  Age,"  delivered  in  the 
following  year,  this  expression  occurs,  —  his  recognition  of 
the  awakening  of  those  days  to  the  need  of  individual,  social, 
and  political  reform:  —  "Religion  does  not  seem  now  to  tend 
to  a  cultus,  but  to  a  heroic  life.  He  who  would  undertake  it 
is  to  front  a  corrupt  society  and  speak  rude  truth,  and  he  must 
be  ready  to  meet  collision  and  suffering." 

The  saying  of  Mahomet  alone  served  for  motto  in  the  first, 
edition. 

Page  245,  note  I.  In  this  list  of  plays,  all  from  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher,  Mr.  Emerson  evidently  trusted  to  his  memory, 
and  gave  to  one  the  name  from  a  leading  character.  There  is  no 
play  by  the  name  of*'  Sophocles,"  but  the  extract  given  is  from 


422  NOTES 

a  piece  called  ««  Four  Plays  in  One,"  the  special  play  being 
"The  Triumph  of  Honor."  This  is  founded  on  a  story  of 
Boccaccio's  in  the  Decameron,  the  tenth  day  and  the  fifth 
novel. 

Page  24.7,  note  I.  Burley's  description  of  the  incorrupti- 
bility of  the  young  nobleman  in  Old  Mortality,  chapter  xlii., 
• —  a  passage  often  repeated  by  Mr.  Emerson  to  his  children. 

Page  248,  note  I.  From  youth  to  age  he  took  delight  in 
Plutarch,  the  Lives  and  the  Morals.  This  passage  from  Mr. 
Emerson's  Introduction  to  Professor  William  Watson  Good- 
win's translations  of  the  Morals  (printed  also  in  Lectures 
tnd  Biographical  Sketches}  shows  what  attracted  him  to  Plu- 
tarch. "  His  extreme  interest  in  every  trait  of  character  and 
his  broad  humanity  lead  him  constantly  to  Morals,  to  the 
study  of  the  Beautiful  and  Good.  Hence  his  love  of  heroes, 
his  rule  of  life,  and  his  clear  convictions  of  the  high  destiny 
of  the  Soul." 

Page  2JO,  note  I.  This  paragraph  is  suggestive  of  much 
that  is  written  in  «« Aristocracy,"  in  Lectures  and  Biographi' 
(al  Sketches. 

Page  2^1,  note  I. 

So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  man, 

When  Duty  whispers  low,  Thou  must, 

The  youth  replies,  I  can. 


Best  befriended  of  the  God 

He  who,  in  evil  times, 

Warned  by  an  inward  voice, 

Heeds  not  the  darkness  and  the  dread, 

Biding  by  his  rule  and  choice. 

Feeling  only  the  fiery  thread 


NOTES  423 

Leading  over  heroic  ground, 

Walled  with  mortal  terror  round, 

To  the  aim  which  him  allures, 

And  the  sweet  heaven  his  deed  secures. 

«'  Voluntaries,"  Poems. 

253,  note  i.  From  Shakspeare's  Henry  IV.  t  Part 
fl.,  Act  II.,  Scene  ii. 

Page  2JJ,  note  2.  In  the  translation  of  the  Oriental 
Geography  of  Ibn  (or  Ebn)  Haukal,  by  Sir  George  Ouseley, 
published  in  London  in  1800,  this  anecdote  may  be  found 
with  somewhat  different  wording. 

Page  254.,  note  I.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  instances 
of  Mr.  Emerson's  applied  philosophy  is  the  absence  in  his 
journals  of  complaint  of  untimely,  exacting,  and  wearisome 
visitors,  towards  whose  bodies  and  souls  he  had  to  exercise 
hospitality.  Once  or  twice  nature  asserts  herself  by  a  half- 
humorous  explosion  of  protest. 

The  subjects  that  inspired  the  poem  "The  Visit"  were 
probably  unaware  that  they  outstayed  their  welcome. 

Page  256,  note  i.  Another  version  of  this  story  is  told  by 
Plutarch  in  his  "  Apothegms  of  Kings  and  Great  Command- 
ers," in  the  Morals,  "When  Paetilius  and  Quintus  accused 
him  of  many  crimes  before  the  people  ;  '  On  this  very  day,' 
he  said,  « I  conquered  Hannibal  and  Carthage  ;  I  for  my 
part  am  going  with  my  crown  on  to  the  capitol  to  sacrifice  ; 
and  let  him  that  pleaseth  stay  and  pass  his  vote  upon  me.' 
Having  thus  said,  he  went  his  way  5  and  the  people  followed 
him,  leaving  his  accusers  declaiming  to  themselves." 

Page  257,  note  I.  An  allusion  to  the  charm  of  "  the  novel, 
hardly  smuggled  into  the  tolerance  of  father  and  mother  "  by 
Jhe  schoolboy,  occurs  again  in  ««  Domestic  Life  "  in  the  pas* 


424  NOTES 

sage  which  describes  the  home  life  of  the  Emerson  brothers 
in  childhood. 

Page  258,  note  i. 

Because  I  was  content  with  these  poor  fields, 
Low,  open  meads,  slender  and  sluggish  streams, 
And  found  a  home  in  haunts  which  others  scorned, 
The  partial  wood-gods  overpaid  my  love 
And  granted  me  the  freedom  of  their  state. 

««  Musketaquid,"  Poems. 

Page  260,  note  j.  «« Scorn  trifles,  lift  your  aims  ;  do 
what  you  are  afraid  to  do  :  sublimity  of  character  must  come 
from  sublimity  of  motive. ' '  These  were  the  teachings  which 
the  Emerson  boys  received  in  their  youth  from  their  brilliant, 
loving,  and  eccentric  aunt,  Miss  Mary  Moody  Emerson.  Her 
nephew  has  left  an  account  of  her  in  Lectures  and  Biographi~ 
cal  Sketches.  His  words  concerning  her  are  carved  upon  her 
gravestone  in  Concord  Cemetery  :  "  She  gave  high  counsels. 
It  was  the  privilege  of  certain  boys  to  have  this  immeasurably 
high  standard  indicated  to  their  childhood,  a  blessing  which 
nothing  else  in  education  could  supply." 

Page  262,  note  I.  The  Rev.  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy,  a  Presby- 
terian minister  of  intelligence,  courage  and  blameless  character, 
devoted  himself  to  the  cause  of  awakening  public  sentiment  in 
the  Southern  and  Border  States  to  the  wrong  of  Slavery  and  its 
evil  results,  and  became  editor  of  the  St.  Louis  Observer.  His 
press  was  destroyed  by  a  mob,  and  he  and  his  family  were 
driven  from  the  city.  He  then  settled  in  Alton,  Illinois,  and 
established  his  paper,  maintaining  anti-slavery  views.  Riots 
resulted,  and  three  presses,  furnished  in  succession  by  friends 
of  the  cause,  were  destroyed.  Mr.  Lovejoy  sent  for  another 
press.  A  public  meeting  of  citizens  was  called  because  of  the 


NOTES  425 

excited  state  of  public  opinion  in  the  city.  Resolutions  were 
passed  requiring  Lovejoy  to  retire  from  the  charge  of  his  paper. 
He  stood  upon  his  rights  under  the  Constitution  to  publish  his 
beliefs  freely.  To  the  demand  that  in  deference  to  mob  law 
he  should  yield  up  his  post,  he  said:  «« This  I  never  will  do. 
God  in  his  providence  —  so  say  all  my  brethren,  and  so  \ 
think  —  has  devolved  upon  me  the  responsibility  of  maintain- 
ing my  ground  here;  and,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  am  determined 
to  do  it.  A  voice  comes  to  me  from  Maine,  from  Massachu- 
setts, from  Connecticut,  from  New  York,  from  Pennsylvania, 
—  yea,  from  Kentucky,  from  Mississippi,  from  Missouri,  call- 
ing upon  me  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  dear  in  heaven  or  earth 
to  stand  fast,  and  by  the  help  of  God  I  will  stand.  I  know 
I  am  but  one  and  you  are  many.  My  strength  will  avail 
but  little  against  you  all.  You  can  crush  me  if  you  will,  but  I 
shall  die  at  my  post,  for  I  cannot  and  will  not  forsake  it." 
The  press  arrived  and  was  lodged  by  his  friends  in  a  stone 
warehouse  belonging  to  one  of  a  gallant  little  company  who 
undertook  to  defend  the  right  of  free  speech.  On  the  night 
of  November  7,  1 837,  the  mob  demanded  the  press.  The  city 
authorities  gave  no  protection.  Mr.  Lovejoy' s  friends  refused 
to  surrender  and  were  attacked.  They  resisted,  and  when 
the  building  was  set  on  fire,  Lovejoy  coming  out  to  prevent 
it  was  shot  dead. 

Mr.  George  P.  Bradford,  one  of  Mr.  Emerson's  nearest 
friends,  described  to  me  the  occasion  when  he  delivered  this 
discourse  in  Boston.  Towards  the  end  of  the  lecture,  while 
carrying  his  audience  —  the  cultivated  people  of  Boston  — 
with  him,  in  full  sympathy  with  devoted  courage  in  other 
times  and  lands,  suddenly,  looking  his  hearers  in  the  eyes,  he 
brought  before  them  the  instance  in  their  own  day  and  coun- 
try, and  told  of  the  martyrdom  of  Lovejoy  for  the  right  of 


*26  NOTES 

free  speech.  Mr.  Bradford  said  that  a  cold  shudder  seemed 
to  run  through  the  audience  at  this  calm  braving  of  public 
opinion  twenty  years  before  its  ripening  in  the  great  war  for 
freedom.  Of  course  Lovejoy  had  other  defenders  in  Boston, 
notably  Wendell  Phillips,  who  first  entered  the  lists  as  an 
anti-slavery  champion  at  the  time  of  his  slaying. 
Page  262,  note  2. 

Freedom's  secret  wilt  thou  know  ? 

Counsel  not  with  flesh  and  blood  ; 

Loiter  not  for  cloak  or  food  ; 

Right  thou  feelest  such  to  do. 

Page  263,  note  I.  These  lines  were  evidently  quoted 
from  memory  from  "  A  Dirge,"  one  of  Tennyson's  early 
poems.  The  burden,  "Let  them  rave,"  runs  through  all 
the  verses.  The  following  one  comes  as  near  the  lines  as 
quoted  as  any  of  them  :  — 

Thou  wilt  not  turn  upon  thy  bed  ; 

Chaunteth  not  the  brooding  bee 

Sweeter  tones  than  calumny  ? 
Let  them  rave. 

Thou  wilt  never  raise  thine  head 

From  the  green  that  folds  thy  grave  — 
Let  them  rave. 


THE   OVER-SOUL 

This  essay  was  not  given  as  a  lecture  in  the  Boston  courses. 
Portions  of  it  came  from  "  Religion  "  in  that  on  the  "  Philo- 
sophy of  History  "  (1836-37),  from  "Holiness"  in  that 
on  "Human  Culture"  (1837-38);  much  was  taken  from 
the  "Doctrine  of  the  Soul,"  the  first  lecture  in  the  course  on 


NOTES  427 

"Human  Life,"  and  a  little  from  "School"  in  the  same 
course. 

Mr.  George  Willis  Cooke  in  his  Life  of  Emerson  speaks 
of  the  influence  first  exerted  by  German  thought  in  this  coun- 
try about  the  year  1830,  received  mainly  through  Coleridge 
as  a  medium,  in  opposition  to  the  utilitarian  views  held  by  Eng- 
lish moralists.  I  quote  from  his  interesting  chapter  on  "  The 
Era  of  Transcendentalism:  "  "  The  new  thought  was  every- 
where a  reaction  against  it  [the  philosophy  of  Locke  and 
Bentham,  and  of  many  English  Unitarians].  .  .  .  It  declared 
that  man  has  innate  ideas,  and  a  faculty  transcending  the  senses 
and  the  understanding.  It  identified  morality  and  religion,  and 
made  intuition  their  source.  Coleridge  calls  this  transcendent 
faculty  Reason,  and  regarded  it  as  the  immediate  beholding  of 
supersensual  things.  He  says  it  cannot  be  called  a  faculty,  and 
much  less  a  personal  property  of  the  human  mind.  We  do 
not  possess  it,  but  partake  of  it.  It  is  identical  with  the  Uni- 
versal Reason,  a  spark  from  which  enters  the  human  mind. 
He  says  there  is  but  one  reason,  which  all  intelligent  beings 
share  in,  and  it  is  identical  in  them  all.  This  idea  became 
most  fruitful  in  Emerson's  mind,  the  source  of  his  doctrine  of 
the  Over-Soul." 

It  is  certain  that  Mr.  Emerson  set  a  high  value  on  Cole- 
ridge's teachings,  through  which  he  first  came  in  contact  with 
German  ideas,  but  his  eager  readings  of  Plato,  beginning  in 
college,  led  him  later  to  Plotinus,  Porphyry,  Synesius,  Proclus, 
and  the  other  Neo-platonists  influenced  by  Oriental  thought. 
These  "  great  spiritual  lords  who  have  walked  in  the  world," 
"  the  high  priesthood  of  the  pure  reason,"  '  had  given  him  a 
broader  conception  than  contemporary  preachers  entertained 
of  "Him  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.'* 
i  In  the  last  pages  of  the  essay  on  "  Intellect." 


4i8  NOTES 

Dr.  Holmes,  in  commenting  on  "The  Over-Soul,"  says: 
"It  is  a  curious  amusement  to  trace  many  of  these  thought! 
and  expressions  to  Plato,  or  Plotinus,  or  Proclus,  or  Porphyry, 
to  Spinoza  or  Schelling,  but  the  same  tune  is  a  different  thing 
according  to  the  instrument  on  which  it  is  played.  There  are 
tongs  without  words,  and  there  are  states  in  which,  in  place 
of  the  trains  of  thought  moving  in  endless  procession  with  ever- 
varying  figures  along  the  highway  of  Consciousness,  the  soul 
is  possessed  by  a  single  all-absorbing  idea,  which,  in  the  high- 
est state  of  spiritual  exaltation,  becomes  a  vision." 

The  only  motto  which  wa"s  prefixed  to  the  essay  in  the 
first  edition  was  that  from  the  Psychozoia,  or  Life  of  the  Soul, 
Canto  II.,  19,  by  Henry  More,  printed  in  1620.  This  verse 
was  included  by  Mr.  Emerson  in  his  collection  of  poems,  Par- 
nassus, where  he  gave  it  the  title  "  Euthanasia." 

Page  267,  note  I.  Hardly  anywhere  in  his  writings  has 
Mr.  Emerson  stated  his  belief  in  the  sure  triumph  of  beneficent 
law  more  compactly  than  in  this  sentence,  suggesting  that  the 
leaven  of  conscience  would  work  to  the  salvation  of  the  race. 
Page  268,  note  I.  This  expression  recalls  the  line  in  which 
Mr.  Emerson  took  great  pleasure  in  a  poem  sent  to  him  by 
Mr.  George  E.  Tufts,  of  New  York  :  — 

Life  is  a  flame  whose  splendor  hides  its  base. 
Page  268,  note  2.    Again  the  doctrine  of « « The  Flowing '  *  t 
Far  seen  the  river  glides  below, 
Tossing  one  sparkle  to  the  eyes. 
I  catch  thy  meaning,  wizard  wave  ; 
The  River  of  my  Life  replies. 

««  Peter's  Field,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  2fOt  note  /.    Dr.  Holmes  said  that «'  In  the  « Ov» 


NOTES  429 

Soul '  Emerson  attempted  the  impossible.  He  is  as  folly  con- 
scious of  this  fact  as  the  reader  of  his  rhapsody,  —  nay,  he  U 
more  profoundly  penetrated  with  it  than  any  of  his  readers. 
.  .  .  The  '  Over-Soul '  might  almost  be  called  the  Over- 
fiow  of  a  spiritual  imagination." 

Page  270,  note  2.  Compare  the  essay  on  "  Demonology  " 
in  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches. 

Page  2fO>  note  j.  This  suggests  the  expressions  of  Cole- 
ridge as  rendered  by  Mr.  Cooke  in  the  note  at  the  beginning 
of  this  chapter. 

Page  271,  note  I.  This,  as  Mr.  Emerson  says  elsewhere, 
is  the  weakness  of  talent  as  compared  with  genius. 

Page  271,  note  2.  Found  in  a  list  of  Spanish  proverbs  given 
te  one  of  his  early  journals. 

Page  272,  note  i. 

Olympian  bards  who  sung 
Divine  ideas  below, 
Which  always  find  us  young, 
And  always  keep  us  so. 

Lines  from  the  "Ode  to  Beauty,"  Poems;  used  also  u 
motto  to  "The  Poet,"  in  Essays,  Second  Series. 

Page  274,  note  I.  In  the  first  edition  this  last  clause  is 
thus  given  :  "  All  else  is  idle  weeds  for  her  wearing." 

Page  275,  note  /.  The  doctrine  of  Each  in  All,  the  ev  KCU 
Trav  of  Xenophanes,  and  "  the  venerable  and  awful  Parme- 
nides,"  is  also  a  familiar  thought  of  Plato. 

Page  2J5>  note  2.  Through  his  preaching,  and  increas- 
ingly through  his  lecturing  experiences,  Emerson  honored  his 
hearers,  however  humble,  by  not  "  coming  down  to  them," 
but  reached  them  by  his  assuming  their  virtue,  and  speaking 
to  the  "common  soul"  in  them. 

Page  2j6t  note  I.    A  favorite  image  with  him,  drawn  from 


430  NOTES 

the  Copernican  astronomy,  which,  by  considering  the  systot 
from  the  centra!  sun,  did  away  with  the  perturbations  appar« 
cnt  in  the  Ptolemaic  system.  This  is  spiritualized  in  the  poem 
"Uriel." 

Page  278,  note  I.  John  Murray  Forbes,  a  great  and  silent 
power  for  good  in  the  State  and  Country  during  and  after  the 
Civil  War,  and  one  of  Mr.  Emerson's  valued  friends,  used  to 
tell  his  children  :  "So  the  thing  is  done,  it  is  of  no  conse- 
quence who  does  it." 

Page  278,  note  2,  "  We  know  better  than  we  do,"  and 
"  We  are  wiser  than  we  know,"  recur  in  Emerson's  teachings. 
The  line  in  "  The  Problem,"  — 

He  builded  better  than  he  knew,  — 

has  passed  into  a  proverb. 

Page  278,  note 3.  In  the  end  of  the  poem  "  Worship" 
this  image  is  rendered  in  verse. 

Page  279,  note  I.  With  this  may  be  compared  a  para- 
graph in  the  essay  "  Education  "  in  Lectures  and  Biographical 
Sketches. 

Page  281,  note  I.  Here,  as  also  some  three  pages  earlief 
in  this  essay,  recurs  the  favorite  image  — 

Being's  tide 

Swells  hitherward,  and  myriads  of  forms 
Lave,  robed  with  beauty,  painted  by  the  sun; 
Their  dust,  pervaded  by  the  nerves  of  God, 
Throbs  with  an  overmastering  energy 
Knowing  and  doing. 

"  Pan,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  281,  note  2.  He  quotes  Bacon  elsewhere  as  saying 
•  Nature  is  commanded  by  obeying  her." 


NOTES  431 

Page  282,  note  i. 

Blasted  with  excess  of  light. 

Gray,  Progress  of  Poesy. 

Page  282,  note  2,  It  was  Emerson's  custom  to  answer 
the  crude  inquiries  on  great  subjects  of  his  young  visitors  cour- 
teously, not  directly,  but  in  a  way  to  show  the  great  propor- 
tions of  the  subject,  and  set  them  really  thinking.  "  The 
gods  like  indirect  names  and  dislike  to  be  named  directly." 

Page  283,  note  i.  This  is  like  a  passage  in  "  Demono- 
logy,"  in  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches. 

Page  284,  note  I.  Believing  in  the  indestructibility  of  spirit 
and  of  matter,  and  regarding  the  latter  as  a  method  of  instruc- 
tion, he  never  disquieted  himself,  but,  assured  that  he  and  all 
men  shared  in  the  universal  existence,  did  not  care  to  peep 
beyond  the  curtain.  He  said,  "  I  am.  The  whole  fact  is  here 
or  nowhere." 

Page  285,  note  I.  The  Spirit  lodged  in  man  has  spurred 
him  to  seeking  light,  and  works  out  the  answer  in  his  life. 

They  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out; 
When  me  they  fly,  I  am  the  wings; 
I  am  the  doubter  and  the  doubt, 
And  I  the  hymn  the  Brahmin  sings. 

"  Brahma,"  Poems. 

Page  286,  note  i. 

Thou  art  the  unanswered  question. 

"The  Sphinx,"  Poems. 

God  enters  by  a  private  door  into  every  individual.  —  "  In- 
tellect," Essays,  Second  Series. 

Page  286,  note  2.  In  his  first  letter  to  John  Sterling  Emer- 
ion  said,  speaking  of  Sterling's  paper  on  Carlyle,  ««  in  it  1 


432  NOTES 

admired  the  rare  behavior,  with  far  less  heed  the  things  saidj 
these  were  opinions,  but  the  tone  was  the  man." 

Page  288,  note  i.  Journal,  1851.  "  There  is  something  — . 
our  brothers  over  the  sea  do  not  know  it  or  own  it ;  Scott, 
Southey,  Hallam,  and  Dickens  would  deny  and  blaspheme  it 
—  which  is  setting  them  all  aside,  and  the  whole  world  also, 
tnd  planting  itself  forever  and  ever. ' ' 

Page  289,  note  I. 

Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free. 

"The  Problem,"  Poems. 

Page  28y>  note  2.  This  image  is  used  in  some  lines  on  the 
fl-ansient  character  of  grief,  printed  among  the  "  Fragments  on 
Life ' '  in  the  Appendix  to  the  Poems. 

Page  292,  note  i.  Emerson  believed  that  in  saying  "  I  and 
the  Father  are  one  "  Jesus  meant  to  teach  that  all  men  could 
become  channels  of  deity,  instancing  himself. 

Page  292,  note  2.  Dr.  Holmes  spoke  of  him  as  "an  icon- 
oclast without  a  hammer,  who  took  down  our  idols  from  their 
pedestals  so  tenderly  that  it  seemed  like  an  act  of  worship." 
In  quoting  this  passage,  Mr.  Cabot  adds  :  "  That  is  well  said. 
But  I  am  not  sure  that  he  took  them  down,  or  ever  thought  it 
worth  while  that  they  should  come  down  so  long  as  they  were 
really  objects  of  worship.  What  he  wished  to  disturb  was 
formalism,  ...  the  gazing  after  past  revelations  until  we  are 
blind  to  the  present." 

Page  293,  note  i.  This  thought  is  found  in  the  second 
motto  of  "Compensation,"  "And  all  that  Nature  made 
thine  own,"  etc. 

Page  293,  note  2.  This  sentence  was  first  an  entry  made 
by  Mr.  Emerson  in  his  Journal  on  the  eve  of  going  to  deliver 
his  Divinity  School  Address  in  1838.  The  sentence  and  tht 


NOTES  433 

entire  paragraph  were  a  portion  of  a  sermon  preached,  prob- 
ably in  the  following  winter,  in  East  Lexington.     Mrs.  Emer- 
son cared  so  much  for  this  passage  that  she  gave  it  to  her 
children  to  read  while  they  were  very  young. 
Page  297,  note  I. 

No  ray  is  dimmed,  no  atom  worn, 
My  oldest  force  is  good  as  new, 
And  the  fresh  rose  on  yonder  thorn 
Gives  back  the  bending  heavens  in  dew. 

«« Song  of  Nature,"  Poems- 

CIRCLES 

No  part  of  this  essay  appears  to  have  been  taken  from  ear- 
lier papers,  and  no  lecture  of  that  name  is  recorded.  On  the 
I  zth  of  September,  1 840,  in  a  letter  to  Miss  Elizabeth  Hoar, 
Mr.  Emerson  wrote :  « «  My  chapter  on  «  Circles '  begins  to 
prosper,  and  when  it  is  October  I  shall  write  like  a  Latin 
Father." 

His  friend,  William  Ellery  Channing,  thus  spoke  of  the  range 
of  Emerson's  mind  :  — 

The  circles  of  thy  thought  shine  vast  as  stars, 
No  glass  shall  round  them, 
No  plummet  sound  them, 

They  hem  the  observer  like  bright  steel  wrought  bars, 
And  limpid  as  the  sun, 
Or  as  bright  waters  run 
From  the  cold  fountain  of  the  Alpine  springs, 
Or  diamonds  richly  set  in  the  king's  rings. 
Dr.  Richard  Garnctt » writes: «« The  object  of  this  fine  essay 

*  Lift  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emtrton,  by  Richard  Garnett,  LL.  D.,  London, 
Walter  Scott,  1888. 
II 


434  NOTES 

quaintly  entitled  «  Circles '  is  to  reconcile  this  rigidity  of  unal« 
terable  law  with  the  fact  of  human  progress.  Compensation 
illustrates  one  property  of  a  circle,  which  always  returns  to  the 
point  where  it  began,  but  it  is  no  less  true  that  around  every 
circle  another  can  be  drawn.  .  .  .  Hence  there  is  no  security 
but  in  infinite  progress.  .  .  .  Emerson  followed  his  own  coun- 
sel ;  he  always  keeps  a  reserve  of  power.  His  theory  oi 
«  Circles '  reappears  without  the  least  verbal  indebtedness  to 
himself  in  the  splendid  essay  on  '  Love.'  " 

The  poem  "  Uriel  "  should  be  read  in  connection  with  thi« 
essay. 

Page  jar,  note  I. 

Line  in  Nature  is  not  found, 
Unit  and  Universe  are  round. 

"  Uriel,"  Poem. 
Page  JOI,  note  2. 

Another  morn  has  risen  on  mid-noon. 

Milton,  Paradise  Lost,  V.,  310. 

The  last  clause  in  the  sentence  suggests  one  by  Mr.  Emer- 
son's neighbor  poet,  William  Ellery  Channing,  in  "  The  Poet** 
Hope,"  — 

If  my  bark  sinks,  'tis  to  another  sea. 

Page  302,  note  /.  The  old  doctrine  of  Heracleitus  again, 
brought  to  the  modern  use  of  progress  by  evolution.  The 
prophecies  of  1 841  made  in  the  later  portion  of  this  paragraph 
have  been  strangely  fulfilled  in  sixty  years. 

Page  JOJ,  note  I. 

Giddy  with  motion,  Nature  reels, 
Sun,  moon,  man,  undulate  and  stream. 
The  mountains  flow,  the  solids  seem. 


NOTES  435 

Change  acts,  reacts  ;  back,  forward  hurled, 
And  pause  were  palsy  to  the  world. 

"The  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Page  304,  note  i.  "  Throw  a  stone  into  the  stream,  and 
die  circles  that  propagate  themselves  are  the  beautiful  type  of 
all  influence. ' '  —  Nature,  chapter  iv. 

The  ripples  in  rhymes  the  oar  forsake. 

«  Woodnotes,"  II.,  Poems. 

Page  304,  note  2.  It  was  a  curious  superstition  in  the 
Middle  Ages  that  evil  spirits  could  not  get  out  of  a  circle 
drawn  around  them.  Some  American  Indians  leave  a  slight 
break  in  the  colored  circles  that  decorate  their  baskets  for  the 
Vevil  to  get  out. 

Page  J07,  note  I. 

Unless  above  himself  he  can 

Erect  himself,  how  poor  a  thing  is  man. 

Samuel  Daniels  "  To  the  Countess  of  Cumberland." 
(Quoted  in  ««  Civilization,"  Society  and  Solitude.} 

Page  JO/,  note  2.  The  ideas  expressed  in  this  paragraph 
may  also  be  found  in  the  Poems. 

Have  I  a  lover 
Who  is  noble  and  free  ?  — 
I  would  he  were  nobler 
Than  to  love  me. 

"  The  Sphinx,"  Poems. 

Heartily  know, 
When  half-gods  go 
The  gods  arrive." 

«  Give  All  to  Love,"  Poems. 
See  also  "  The  Park." 


•436  NOTES 

Page  308,  note  z.  It  was  Mr.  Emerson's  own  habit  it 
his  lectures,  after  presenting  strongly  one  side  of  his  theme, 
suddenly  to  show  the  other  aspect  of  it,  almost  ignored  be- 
fore. This  might  be  done  in  another  Jecture  of  the  course, 
but  often  in  the  same  one. 

In  vain  produced,  all  rays  return. 
Evil  will  bless,  and  ice  will  burn. 

"  Uriel,"  Poems. 

Page 311,  note  /.  In  "The  Poet,"  I.  (Appendix), 
«nd  in  "  Woodnotes,"  II.,  in  the  passage  beginning, 
"  Hearken  once  more,"  he  tells  of  the  instability  of  apparent 
permanencies. 

Page  312,  note  I.  The  necessary  alternation  from  books 
to  nature,  from  society  to  solitude,  was  always  urged  by  Mr. 
Emerson,  the  latter  in  each  case  ranking  the  former.  See  the 
passage  in  "The  American  Scholar  "  beginning  "  Undoubt- 
edly there  is  a  right  way  of  reading,  so  it  be  sternly  subordi- 
nated." 

See  thou  bring  not  to  field  or  stone 

The  fancies  found  in  books ; 

Leave  authors'  eyes,  and  fetch  your  own, 

To  brave  the  landscape's  looks. 

"Waldeinsamkeit,"  Poem*. 

Page  Jij,  note  i.  The  need  of  direct  relation  of  the 
soul  with  God  is  dwelt  upon  at  length  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  "Address  to  the  Senior  Class  of  the  Divinity  School"  in 
Nature,  Addresses,  and  Lectures :  "  Let  me  admonish  you, 
6rst  of  all,  to  go  alone  .  .  .  and  dare  to  love  God  without 
mediator  or  veil,"  etc. 

Page  314.,  note  I.  The  welcome  idea  of  the  symbolism 
of  Nature  he  received  first  from  Plato,  and  it  was  this  whit* 


NOTES  437 

give  him  pleasure  in  Swedenborg's  teachings.  " The  noblest 
ministry  of  Nature  is  to  stand  as  an  apparition  of  God."  — • 
Nature,  chapter  vii. 

Page  314,  note  2.  Compare  the  second  motto  of  "  Com- 
pensation ' '  in  this  volume. 

P*ge  3I7>  note  i.     From  Young's  Night  Thoughts. 

Page  3*7*  no*'  2.  Pyrrho  of  Elis  (360-270  B.  c.) 
taught  that  truth  was  unattainable,  and  that  men  should  be 
indifferent  to  all  external  circumstances. 

PaSe  318 1  note  I.  This  consoling  idea  of  Good  out  of 
Evil  is  taught  in  the  motto  for  "Spiritual  Laws"  in  thw 
volume  and  in  "  Uriel "  in  the  Poems. 

The  balance-beam  of  Fate  was  bent, 
The  bounds  of  good  and  ill  were  rent, 
Strong  Hades  could  not  keep  his  own, 
But  all  slid  to  confusion. 

Page  318,  note  2.  Dr.  Holmes,  referring  to  this  para- 
graph, says  :  "  But  Emerson  states  his  own  position  so  frankly 
in  his  essay  entitled  « Circles,'  that  the  reader  cannot  take  is- 
sue with  him  as  against  utterances  which  he  will  not  defend." 

Page 319,  note  i.  His  poem  "Terminus"  shows  how 
Emerson  met  advancing  old  age. 


INTELLECT 

This  lecture  was  not  given  in  any  of  the  Boston  courses. 
Passages  of  no  great  length  were  taken  from  the  lectures  OB 
''Literature"  in  the  course  on  "The  Philosophy  of  His- 
tory" (1836-37),  and  from  "  The  Doctrine  of  the  Soul  " 
gnd  "  Genius  "  in  that  on  "  Human  Life  "  (1838-39). 


43«  NOTES 

Mr.  Emerson  never  took  any  pleasure  in  systems  of  met*- 
physics.  He  even  once  said  in  a  lecture,  "  Who  has  not 
looked  into  a  metaphysical  book  ?  And  what  sensible  man 
ever  looked  twice?"  "Yet,"  as  Mr.  Cabot  says  in  his 
Memoir,  «'  the  repulsiveness  lay  not  in  the  subject,  but  in 
the  way  in  which  it  is  treated."  He  wished  to  "  state  the 
laws  and  powers  of  the  mind  as  simply  and  as  attractively  as 
the  physical  laws  are  stated  by  Owen  and  Faraday."  He 
welcomed  all  the  scientific  discoveries  of  his  day  for  their 
symbolic  value,  assured  that  the  same  laws  ruled  mind  and 
matter.  Hence  for  years  he  planned  a  work  on  the  Natural 
History  of  Intellect.  He  gave  three  lectures  on  that  sub- 
ject in  England  in  1848,  and  later  others  in  America,  espe- 
cially two  courses  at  Harvard  College.  But  he  was  prevented 
by  failing  strength  from  completing  the  work  he  designed. 
After  his  death  Mr.  Cabot  collected  what  matter  vas  avail- 
able from  the  manuscripts,  and  this  gives  the  title  to  the  vol- 
ume Natural  History  of  Intellect. 

The  motto  of  this  chapter  appears  in  one  of  Mr.  Emer- 
son's note-books  as  the  third  verse  of  a  short  poem  which  is 
included  in  the  Appendix  to  the  Poems,  among  the  ««  Frag- 
ments on  the  Poet. ' '  The  introductory  verses  run  thus  :  — 

Pale  genius  roves  alone, 

No  scout  can  track  his  way, 
None  credits  him  till  he  have  shown 

His  diamonds  to  the  day. 

Not  his  the  feaster's  wine, 

Nor  land,  nor  gold,  nor  power, 

By  want  and  pain  God  screeneth  him 
Till  his  elected  hour. 


NOTES  439 

Page  325,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  at  the  age  of  nineteen 
was  associated  with  his  brother  William,  who  taught  a  pri- 
rate  school  for  young  ladies  in  Boston.  In  this  capacity  he 
taught  chemistry  from  some  elementary  text-book,  possibly 
showing  a  few  of  the  simpler  experiments.  Later  he  heard 
with  great  interest  of  the  discoveries  in  that  science  from  his 
wife's  brother,  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson,  an  accomplished 
chemist  and  geologist.  Each  new  fact  he  viewed  as  a  symbol 
awaiting  interpretation. 

Page  327,  note  i.  Journal,  ««  Of  the  most  romantic  fact 
the  memory  is  more  romantic." 

Page  327,  note  2.  "  Thoughts  come  into  our  minds  by 
avenues  which  we  never  left  open." 

Page  328,  note  I.  In  the  early  part  of"  Natural  History 
of  Intellect  "  in  the  volume  thus  named,  Intellect  is  consid- 
ered "  as  an  ethereal  sea,  which  ebbs  and  flows,  which 
surges  and  washes  hither  and  thither,  carrying  its  whole  vir- 
tue into  every  creek  and  inlet  which  it  bathes.  To  this  sea 
every  human  house  has  a  water  front.  But  this  force,  cre- 
ating nature,  visiting  whom  it  will  and  withdrawing  from 
whom  it  will,  making  day  where  it  comes  and  leaving  night 
when  it  departs,  is  no  fee  or  property  of  man  or  angel. 
It  is  as  the  light,  public  and  entire  to  each,  and  on  the  same 
terms. ' ' 

Page  329,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  himself  strove  to  ren- 
der the  thought  that  came  to  him  truly,  not  to  "  meddle  am- 
bitiously "  and  spoil  it  by  "what  we  miscall  Art,"  as  he 
said  in  his  letter  to  Sterling.1  He  brought  kindred  thoughts 
together,  but  purposely  did  not  elaborate  the  argument,  and 
left  to  the  reader  the  pleasure  of  letting  the  electric  spark  pass 
and  show  the  connection. 

i  Letters  of  Emerson  and  Sterling,  No.  IV. 


440  NOTES 

Page  332,  note  I.  ««  It  is  a  Jittle  seed,"  found  in  die 
first  edition,  is  here  omitted. 

Page  333,  note  i.  •'  Day  creeps  after  day,  each  full  of 
facts,  dull,  strange  despised  things.  .  .  .  And  presently  the 
•roused  intellect  finds  gold  and  gems  in  one  of  these  scorned 
facts,  —  then  finds  that  a  day  of  facts  is  a  rock  of  diamonds  ; 
that  a  fact  is  an  Epiphany  of  God."  —  "  Education,"  Lec- 
tures and  Biographical  Sketches, 

Page  333,  note  I.  The  seeming  contradiction  by  this 
sentence  of  what  has  gone  before,  as  to  the  reception  rather 
than  the  originating  of  ideas,  is  done  -away  with  by  the  au- 
thor's strictly  classic  use  of  the  word  produce,  —  to  bring 
forward  the  ideas  received,  joined  perhaps  with  others  that 
shed  light  on  them. 

Page  336,  note  /. 

Unless  to  thought  be  added  will, 
Apollo  is  an  imbecile. 

Lines  from  one  of  the  Note-boob. 

Page  339,  note  /.  "  Excess  of  individualism,  when  it  is 
not  corrected  or  subordinated  to  the  Supreme  Reason,  makes 
that  vice  which  we  stigmatize  as  monotones,  ...  or,  as  the 
French  say,  enfant  perdu  d'une  conviction  iso/ee,  which  give 
such  a  comic  tinge  to  all  society."  —  Natural  History  ijf 
In'illect. 

Page  340,  note  I. 

For  thought,  and  not  praise, 

Thought  is  the  wages 

For  which  I  sell  days, 

Will  gladly  sell  ages, 

And  willing  grow  old, 

Deaf  and  dumb  and  blind  and  cold* 


NOTES  441 

Melting  matter  into  dreams, 
Panoramas  which  I  saw, 
And  whatever  glows  or  seems 
Into  substance,  into  law. 
««  Fragments  on  the  Poet,"  Poems,  Appendix. 

Pag*  341,  note  /.  The  duties  and  sacrifice  required  of 
the  scholar  are  dwelt  on  in  «« The  American  Scholar*'  in 
Nature,  Addresses,  and  Lectures,  and  in  "The  Man  of 
Letters  "  and  ««  The  Scholar  "  in  Lectures  and  Biographical 
Sketches. 

Page  343,  note  i.  The  Egyptian  god  Horus  it  repre- 
sented with  his  finger  on  his  lips. 

Page  344,  note  i.  His  counsel  was  always  to  ««  read  a 
little  proudly,"  and  in  life  he  urged  that  one  should  not  mis- 
take others'  chivalries  for  one's  own. 

Page  345,  note  I.  A  name  given  to  a  group  of  philoso- 
phers, mostly  Neo-platonists,  from  the  mythical  Hermes 
Trismegistus  (thrice  great),  a  Greek  name  for  the  Egyptian 
god  Thoth,  to  whom  many  of  these  writings  were  ascribed. 

Page  346,  note  I.  This  saying  is  quoted  from  Plotinus. 
Ic  is  evident  from  his  mention  of  these  masters  of  ancient 
thought  and  his  markings  on  the  fly-leaves  of  their  books, 
that,  following  his  custom,  he  rapidly  found  such  things  as 
were  for  him,  and  turning  their  abstruse  pages  "  read  for  lus- 
tres." It  was  evidently  the  lofty  tone  that  pleased  him,  and 
certain  quotations  and  "  Chaldean  Oracles." 

Mr.  George  Willis  Cooke  in  his  book  on  Emerson,  chap- 
ter xix.,  gives  an  interesting  brief  abstract  of  the  doctrine! 
of  the  Neo-platonistt. 


442  NOTES 

ART 

In  the  course  on  the  "Philosophy  of  History*'  given  in 
Boston  in  1836—37,  the  third  lecture  was  on  "Art,"  following 
"The  Humanity  of  Science,"  and  preceding  "Literature." 
Much  from  this  lecture  appears  in  this  essay,  but  some  pages 
come  from  "  Eye  and  Ear,"  in  the  next  year's  course. 

In  Mr.  Emerson's  youth  there  were  almost  no  works  of 
art,  except  portraits,  to  be  seen  in  New  England.  At  a  sad 
epoch  of  his  life  he  landed  in  Italy  and  spent  a  few  weeks 
there.  He  saw  the  statues  in  the  museums  of  Naples  and 
Rome.  Looking  for  greatness  of  character  through  works  of  art, 
endowed  with  a  good  sense  of  form  and  fitness,  but  little  for 
color,  and  none  for  technique,  he  evidently  took  great  and 
lasting  pleasure  in  the  works  of  Michelangelo  and  Raphael  in 
the  Vatican.  The  temperance,  simplicity  and  perfect  taste  of 
Greek  art  always  charmed  him.  He  saw  the  Elgin  Marbles 
in  London. 

After  his  return  he  saw  the  paintings  of  Allston,  enjoyed  the 
drawings  of  Flaxman,  and  a  friend,  a  connoisseur  in  art,  lent 
him  his  collection  of  engravings  and  drawings,  in  which  Mr. 
Emerson  took  great  pleasure.1  Among  the  artists  he  had  few 
friends,  but  he  read  works  on  art,  especially  valuing  them  for 
the  glimpses  they  gave  of  the  artist  at  work,  and  his  sayings. 

Dr.  Holmes,  while  praising  the  clothing  by  Emerson  of  the 
common  aspects  of  life  with  the  colors  of  his  imagination, 
feels  that  the  danger  line  was  crossed  when,  in  the  motto  to 
"  Art,"  he  would  have  us  give  even  to 

Barrows,  trays  and  pans 
Grace  and  glimmer  of  romance. 

Vet  he  could  do  so,  and  see  even  planetary  motion  in  a  school- 
»  See  Lettert  of  Eminon  to  a  Friend.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1899. 


NOTES  443 

boy's  play.  Journal.  "  I  saw  a  boy  on  the  Concord  Com- 
mon pick  up  an  old  bruised  tin  milk  pan  that  was  rusting  by 
the  roadside,  and,  poising  it  on  the  top  of  a  stick,  .  .  .  mad<? 
it  describe  the  most  elegant  imaginable  curves." 

Page  jfi,  note  I.  Thomas  Couture,  in  his  admirable 
little  book,  Methods  et  Entretiens  d* Atelier,  speaks  thus  of 
the  portrait  painter's  duty  of  giving  the  best  that  can  be  seen 
in  his  sitter  :  "  Faites  faire  a  toutes  vos  formes,  a  toutes  vos 
lignes,  un  travail  ascensionnel  vers  ce  que  constitue  la  beaute, 
tout  en  restent  cependant  dans  les  limites  du  vrai,  et  vous  ob- 
tiendrez  un  portrait  ressemblant  qui,  a  1'etonnement  de  tous, 
excepte  pourtant  celui  que  vous  aurez  represente,  semblera 
beaucoup  moins  laid  que  le  modele." 

Page  352,  note  I.  "  The  universal  soul  is  the  alone  cre- 
ator of  the  useful  and  the  beautiful  j  therefore  to  make  any- 
thing useful  or  beautiful  the  individual  must  be  submitted  to 
the  universal  mind."  —  "  Art,"  Society  and  Solitude. 

Page  353,  note  I.  These  thoughts  are  expressed  in  his 
poem  "  The  Problem  "  and  in  the  essay  on  "History"  in 
this  volume. 

*'  Every  genuine  work  of  art  has  as  much  reason  for  being 
MS  earth  and  sun."  —  "  Art,"  Society  and  Solitude. 

Page  355,  note  I.  Selection,  '« the  first  office  of  art," 
and  then  what  Ruskin  calls  "  Principality,"  — the  concen- 
tration of  interest,  or  focussing  in  a  picture,  —  are  dwelt  upon 
in  this  paragraph,  and  the  old  doctrine  of  the  Macrocosm 
shown  in  the  Microcosm. 

Page  356,  note  I.  As  stated  by  the  squirrel  to  the  moun- 
tain, in  an  early  poem  of  Emerson's,  — 

Talents  differ, 

All  is  well  and  wisely  put  ; 


444  NOTES 

If  I  cannot  carry  forests  on  my  back, 
Neither  can  you  crack  a  nut. 

Page  35 ft  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  found,  and  said  of  him- 
self, that,  though  he  did  not  have  a  musical  ear,  he  had 
"  musical  eyes."  In  the  physical  and  metaphysical  sense 
his  eyes  were  opened.  Like  his  Seyd, — 

Beauty  chased  he  everywhere,  • — 
and  he  found  what  he  looked  for. 

Page  358,  note  I.  Mr.  Emerson  knew  well  the  truth 
which  the  French  artist  insisted  on  to  his  pupils  :  «« It  is  not 
true  that  one  knows  what  one  sees.  One  sees  what  one 
knows." 

This  paragraph  was  taken  from  the  lecture  '«  Eye  and 
Ear  "  in  the  course  on  "  Human  Culture." 

Page  359,  note  i.     An  instance  of  his  happy  use  of  hia 
classical  studies  in  the  choice  of  this  best  yet  unusual  word. 
Page  361,  note  I. 

Coelum  non  animum  mutant 
Qui  trans  mare  currunt. 

Horace. 

P°Se  3&1 '»  note  2'     See  Hamlet,  Act  I.,  Scene  v. 

Pa&e  3&2  >  note  *•  ID  tne  "  Fragments  on  the  Poet,"  in 
the  Poems,  he  tells  of  a  random  word,  overheard  from  the 
Muse,  — 

I  travelled  and  found  it  at  Rome 

Eastward  it  filled  all  Heathendom, 

And  it  lay  on  my  hearth  when  I  came  home. 

Page  362,  note  2.  "Newton  did  not  exercise  more 
ingenuity,  but  less  than  another  to  see  the  world." 

««  Art,"  Society  and  Solitude. 


NOTES  445 

Page  363,  note  I.  His  application  of  the  evolution  doc- 
trines of  Hunter  and  Lamarck  appears  in  the  words  tendency 
and  effort. 

Page 362,  note  2.  With  "the  negative,"  the  dismal,  or 
sceptical  in  painting  or  in  writing  he  had  no  sympathy. 

Page  364.,  note  I.  This  paragraph  seems  a  strong  in- 
stance of  that  quality  of  Mr.  Emerson  of  staring  aspects  with- 
out qualification,  against  which  he  warns  his  readers  in  ' '  Cir- 
cles "  :  "When  I  obey  my  whims,  let  me  remind  the 
reader  that  I  am  only  an  experimenter.  Do  not  set  the  least 
value  on  what  I  do,  or  the  least  discredit  on  what  I  do  not, 
as  if  I  pretended  to  settle  any  thing  as  true  or  false.  .  .  . 
I  simply  experiment,  an  endless  seeker,  with  no  Past  at  my 
back."  He  valued  painting,  and  sculpture  more,  and  the 
motto,  written  long  after  the  essav  ilscif,  shows  his  feeling 
of  the  necessity  and  blessing  of  art. 

Pag'  367,  note  i.  The  low  state  of  art  in  his  day  and 
country  should  be  remembered. 

Page  369,  note  I.  Emerson's  far  sight  and  faith  went 
beyond  the  materialism  of  his  age  and  country,  regarding  these 
M  a  necessary  stage  in  evolution. 


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